Woof: Serena eats dog food, instantly regrets

No ill effects for top player; Fed can't find form

The gourmet food Serena Williams ordered off the hotel room-service menu for dogs looked good enough for her to eat. So the top-ranked tennis player sampled it, and later got sick.

Williams posted a video Wednesday on Snapchat showing the salmon and rice dish she ordered for her Yorkshire Terrier at their hotel during the Italian Open.

Noting how good it looked, she tells the camera: "I ate a spoonful. Don't judge me!"

Williams says the bite tasted weird, "a little bit like a house-cleaner thing," but she ate it anyway.

She says within two hours, she had to run to the bathroom. She recovered in time to beat fellow American Christina McHale 7-6 (7), 6-1 in the third round Thursday.

Coming from one of the most famous and successful women athletes in the world, the video raised eyebrows but Williams replied to queries on Thursday by saying: "I'm not the most serious person off the court. On the court I am, but off the court I don't have a serious bone in my body."

Smiling, she added: "In fact, I have been told I need to grow up a lot."

Admitting she was feeling no serious ill effects of the incident, she added: "No, thank God! But I don't know how my dog eats that. I guess he's okay with it."

The dog, Chip, appeared fine watching Williams from her player's box.

Williams says of the doggy menu: "I don't think it's consumable for humans. They should have wrote that!"

Federer out

Roger Federer said "time was ticking" in his battle to recover form and fitness for the French Open after he lost to rising Austrian Dominic Thiem 7-6 (2) 6-4 in the third round of the Italian Open on Thursday.

Former world No 1 Federer still looks way short of his best after knee and back injuries and struggled to get to grips with the 22-year-old Thiem at the Foro Italico, a week after withdrawing from the Madrid Open.

Thiem, ranked 15th, recovered from an early break and streaked into a 6-2 lead in the tiebreak before taking the opening set with a backhand winner.

He broke the 34-year-old Federer's serve again midway through the second set as he claimed the 32nd victory of a breakthrough season that saw him rise to a career-high 13th.

Federer, the winner of 17 majors, has missed 10 weeks of the season following knee surgery. He shrugged off the defeat, saying his immediate priority was the French Open that begins on May 22.

"This is like, 'who cares about the results here?'. It matters what comes now in the next couple of months," Federer told a news conference.

"Now obviously time starts ticking more towards Paris. Clearly the way I'm playing right now is never going to be enough for a good run in Paris ... I'm still confident I will be fine somehow."

Federer, a four-time finalist in Rome, missed last week's Madrid Open with a back problem but said there had been some encouraging signs this week.

World No 1 Novak Djokovic was on the wrong end of a love set for only the ninth time in his career, picking up just eight points.

From there, though, he moved to a smooth victory over the 37th-ranked Belluci and a quarterfinal meeting with Rafael Nadal, who defeated Australian Nick Kyrgios 6-7 (3), 6-2, 6-4.

Tomic 'too busy' to represent Australia in Rio

Bernard Tomic ruled himself out of representing Australia at the Rio Olympics in August due to his "extremely busy" playing schedule.

Tomic, who was warned by Australia's Olympic chef de mission Kitty Chiller he was among a group of athletes whose behavior was being monitored to judge their suitability for the Rio team, will instead play an ATP tournament in Mexico.

"With a heavy sense of regret, I have made the difficult decision to not play with the Australian tennis team as they pursue an Olympic medal in Rio," the world No 22 said in a statement.

"I have always proudly represented my country in Davis Cup and given my all when wearing the green and gold.

"But on the basis of my extremely busy playing schedule and my own personal circumstances, I am regrettably unable to commit to this year's tournament."

Tomic drew heavy criticism last week following his exit from the Madrid Open when, on match point against Fabio Fognini, he held the racquet by the strings and did not offer a shot to the Italian's serve.

The 23-year-old responded to the criticism by telling News Corp, "I don't care about that match point. Would you care if you were 23 and worth over $10 million?"

The response was described as "appalling" by Chiller and the criticism intensified when he pulled out of his opening match in Rome after just eight minutes, citing illness.

Reuters

(China Daily 05/14/2016 page11)