Maria Sharapova's acceptance speech was as polished as her game at the Australian Open. A year after being on the wrong end of one of the most-lopsided losses in a Grand Slam final, Sharapova wrapped up her third major title with a 7-5, 6-3 victory over fourth-seeded Ana Ivanovic on Saturday.
The 20-year-old Russian didn't drop a set in seven matches at Melbourne Park, including wins over three of the top four ranked players, erasing 12 months worth of painful memories in the wake of her 6-1, 6-2 loss to Serena Williams last year.
After Ivanovic sprayed a forehand wide on match point, Sharapova dropped to her knees and appeared to be fighting back tears as she waved and blew kisses to the crowd.
Then she dropped her racket in her chair before heading to shake hands and exchange high-fives with her father and supporters.
She clasped her hands and swayed as she stood, waiting to receive the Daphne Akhurst Trophy, then told the Rod Laver Arena crowd that she'd received a text message from tennis great Billie Jean King telling her that 'Champions take chances and pressure is a privilege.'
"I took mine," Sharapova said.
Sharapova wished her mother, Yelena, a happy birthday and told her how she planned to spend some of her $1,207,790 prize money.
"With this big fat check, I'm going to send you a bunch of roses," she said. "Last year I lost on her birthday and this year I said I'm going to make it up to her, and I did."
Sharapova said she "wasn't even close to winning last year."
"It's incredible. If somebody would've told me during the middle of last year I'd be here I'd have said, 'Forget it.'"
Sharapova, seeded fifth, struggled with a shoulder injury last year and slipped from No. 1 to outside the Top 5. She rallied to make the final of the season-ending championship, losing in three long sets to top-ranked Justine Henin.
The Russian star said when her coach and hitting partner Michael Joyce's mother died, it helped her put her cope with the hard times.
Every time she went out to play or practice "Jane was the name we were thinking about," Sharapova said. "I want to dedicate this win to her because after the loss (Joyce) suffered, I got a whole lot of perspective with my injuries and setbacks.
"It helped me prioritize so many things that were outside of tennis."
Ivanovic is projected to rise to No. 2 in the rankings despite the loss, while Sharapova will remain at No. 5 when the new list is released next week.
Sharapova leads their head-to-heads 3-2, avenging a straight-sets loss to the Serbian player in the French Open semifinals last year.
Ivanovic, also 20, is 0-2 in Grand Slam finals after losing the French Open championship match to Henin.
"I'm very emotional and you guys made it a very special experience for me," she told the crowd as tears welled in her eyes. Ivanovic said she expected more big Grand Slam encounters between she and Sharapova in future.
"I really feel I'm also improving my game and I'm learning how to be a top player. These situations help me," she said. "So I'm sure we'll have plenty of opportunities to play against each other in the final of a Grand Slam."
Sharapova was aggressive from the start and, apart from one bad service game in the first set that allowed Ivanovic back to 4-4, controlled the important points against a Serbian player for the second consecutive match.
She beat No. 3 Jelena Jankovic in the semifinals after ending top-ranked Justine Henin's 32-match winning streak in the quarterfinals.
Sharapova set up triple match point and waited patiently as Ivanovic saved two before the Russian could add to her titles at Wimbledon in 2004 and the 2006 U.S. Open.
On a hot, sunny day with temperatures touching 93 degrees, people in the crowd were fanning themselves, and Sharapova retreated to the shade behind the baselines to gather herself between points.
It was Australia Day, so organizers put small national flags at each seat. But there were plenty of Serbian and Russian flags, too.
Most of the signs scattered around a packed arena were pretty clear, including one that said "Quiet please Maria," referring to Sharapova's high-pitched grunts that get louder and louder as pressure rises.
Both players showed some nerves in the first set, with Ivanovic particularly shaky, committing 19 unforced errors to just six winners.
Serving at 2-2, Ivanovic set up double break point with a double fault, then sent a forehand long.
After holding serve the first three times at love, Sharapova returned the favor, committing three double faults while serving at 4-3, the last two at deuce to hand the game to Ivanovic.
But she shrugged off the setback, running off the last three games, breaking to go ahead 6-5, then pumping her fist and shouting "Go Maria! Come on!" Taking every second possible between points, Sharapova then held at love.
From 3-3 in the second set, Sharapova ran off the last three games again, breaking Ivanovic twice.
The advice from King, who won 12 Grand Slam singles titles, was a great help, Sharapova said.
"When I was playing junior tennis she'd turn up and talk to my parents and give them advice and talk to me," Sharapova said. Now she's always someone to give me advice
"I woke up this morning to her text ... I had those great words in my mind during the match."
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Kylie Minogue has offered her condolences to fellow Aussie Heath Ledger as she flew into her "adopted" home yesterday.
Kylie, looking tanned and relaxed after spending the Christmas period at her home in Australia and a brief spell in the United States, chatted and joked with Heathrow airport staff as she arrived to squalls of wind and rain and single digit temperatures.
But she stopped to offer her sympathies to the Ledger family.
"It's very sad, it is a very sad thing," she told the Herald Sun yesterday.
It was the first time back to London for the 39-year-old singer since the Queen awarded her an OBE for services to music.
Describing the UK as her "adopted home", she said she was touched to be honoured in such a way and thanked Britons for their support professionally and personally when she was battling cancer.
"I'm honoured and pleased," she beamed yesterday when asked about the award.
Despite some British criticism about the handing out of awards to celebrities and stars, the OBE seals Kylie's reputation as one of the music industry's most enduring icons with more than 20 years of consistent Number 1 hits.
Kylie said it has been a difficult two years but she was looking forward to 2008.
Meanwhile, Kylie and Robert de Niro were yesterday honoured by receiving Germany's top showbiz honour the Golden Camera.
De Niro will receive a lifetime achievement award, while Minogue will be honoured as best international music act.
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Miley Cyrus was "upset" to learn a mother of a Hannah Montana fan faked a competition to win tickets to a sold-out show by pretending the girl's father had been killed in Iraq.
The 15-year-old pop sensation was shocked to hear that Texan Priscilla Ceballos had submitted the fictional, contest-winning essay earlier this month.
Competition organizers withdrew the prizes that were awarded to Ceballos' daughter Alexis, including a Hannah Montana make-over and an all-expenses paid trip to a concert in Albany, N.Y., when the untruth came to light.
The opening line of Alexis' essay read, "My daddy died this year in Iraq."
But Priscilla confessed, "We did the essay and that's what we did to win. We did whatever we could do to win."
In an interview set to air on "Good Morning America" on Monday, Cyrus says, "I was really kind of upset. I mean, that's just not a cool scenario.
"But it just shows what people will do for a ticket."
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Scarlett Johansson returned from the Persian Gulf with a whole lot of soldiers' trinkets and a delusion of her own engagement — to Barack Obama.
"I am engaged ... to Barack Obama," Johansson joked in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday. "My heart belongs to Barack, and that is who I am currently, finally, engaged to. Yes."
Johansson, who showed her support for the Democratic presidential candidate at the Iowa caucus earlier this month, was really just deflecting a question about rumors she might be engaged (to actor-beau Ryan Reynolds).
The 23-year-old actress talked about the warm welcome she received while visiting troops stationed in the Persian Gulf last week. Johansson dropped by U.S. bases in Kuwait on Jan. 17 and Jan. 18 as part of a USO tour in which she met about 3,500 men and women in uniform.
"Everybody that I met there was so incredibly friendly and polite and genuine and generous," she said. "They were so, so sweet. I mean, I was just amazed."
Johansson said some people ripped patches off their jackets as gifts and handed her challenge coins from their military units. One Marine offered up his St. Christopher medal. Another starstruck guy gushed: "You made my whole deployment!"
Johansson has a full plate for 2008, with the release of films including "The Other Boleyn Girl" and "He's Just Not That Into You," as well as the arrival of her debut album on May 20.
The disc, called "Anywhere I Lay My Head," features Tom Waits cover songs and one original track. "It was a really, really sort of inspired process to make this CD, and it was something I'd never done before," said Johansson, who said the album has a dreamy, ethereal quality.
On a far more serious note: Johansson was still speechless Thursday over the death of fellow actor Heath Ledger, who was found dead Tuesday in his Manhattan apartment. "I'm really just so very shocked," she said. "He was an incredibly sweet, kindhearted and enthusiastic person. And, you know, he loved his daughter — I mean, that was like the light of his life. It's just a terrible loss."
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Having achieved major success on the stage and screen as a singer and as an actress, Beyonce, who starred in 'Dreamgirls', will be singing again on the big screen for her next big role. While speaking to Cedric the Entertainer on his latest film, 'Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins', he mentioned to blackfilm.com that Beyonce has been cast to play famed singer Etta James on his next film, 'Cadillac Records'.
The story is about Leonard Chess, the legendary founder of the South Side Chicago blues label Chess Records. The period piece follows the rise and fall of Chess Records, which launched the careers of such R&B greats as Muddy Waters, Etta James and Chuck Berry. Chess, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, scoured the South, checking out the various blues scenes and selling records from the back of his Cadillac. Cedric the Entertainer will play Willie Dixon, who wrote most of the hits records and was part of the famous company. One of his most famous songs was "Hoochie Coochie Man".
Oscar winner Adrien Brody has also joined the cast to replace Matt Dillon as Leonard Chess, the founder of Chess Records. Dillon had to drop out of the project due to a scheduling conflict.
As previously reported, Jeffrey Wright will portray Muddy Waters in the film set in 1950s Chicago. Also new to the cast are Emmanuelle Chriqui, Columbus Short and Tammy Blanchard.
Darnell Martin ("Their Eyes Were Watching God") penned the script and is directing. Sony/BMG's Sofia Sondervan and Andrew Lack are producing.
According to Allmusicguide.com, James landed at Chicago's Chess Records in 1960, signing with their Argo subsidiary. Immediately, her recording career kicked into high gear; not only did a pair of duets with her then-boyfriend (Moonglows lead singer Harvey Fuqua) chart, her own sides (beginning with the tortured ballad "All I Could Do Was Cry") chased each other up the R&B lists as well. Leonard Chess viewed James as a classy ballad singer with pop crossover potential, backing her with lush violin orchestrations for 1961's luscious "At Last" and "Trust in Me." But James' rougher side wasn't forsaken -- the gospel-charged "Something's Got a Hold on Me" in 1962, a kinetic 1963 live LP (Etta James Rocks the House) cut at Nashville's New Era Club, and a blues-soaked 1966 duet with childhood pal Sugar Pie De Santo, "In the Basement," ensured that.
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Kelly Osbourne wiped away tears last night as she helped her friend Amy Winehouse check into rehab.
The 23-year-old was on hand to support the Back To Black singer as she settled into the Marylebone treatment facility to try and kick her addiction to drugs.
Along with Amy's father Mitch, Kelly arrived laden down with Amy's belongings, which she'd collected for her from her flat in Bow, east London.
She brought two suitcases and two large holdalls, suggesting that Winehouse, 24, might be staying at the centre for quite some time.
A statement from her record company, Universal, said Amy had entered the rehab clinic "to continue her ongoing recovery against drug addiction".
Amy, 24, sought help after her father admitted her family have looked into getting her sectioned under the Mental Health Act.
She has been at the centre of a police inquiry after being caught on video last week, apparently inhaling from a crack pipe.
"Amy decided to enter the facility today after talks with her record label, management, family and doctors," Universal Music Group said in a statement.
"She has come to understand that she requires specialist treatment to continue her ongoing recovery from drug addiction," the statement said.
Ironically, Winehouse - who has been nominated for a six Grammys - made her name with a hit song entitled "Rehab".
She has subsequently cancelled her appearance at a French awards ceremony this Saturday and it is said her decision comes in a bid to prepare herself for the upcoming Grammys.
Winehouse was spotted in London's Regents Park today wearing a fitted black shirt, and matching miniskirt, exposing her painfully thin legs.
In an interview with Vanessa Feltz on BBC London father Mitch complained the authorities don't regard her drug-taking as a danger to herself.
But, he said, they needed her to agree to treatment. The family were helpless to intervene without her consent because the authorities don't see her drug addiction as harmful.
"The moment she says she wants to be in a facility, in half an hour she will be in a facility," said her father, Mitch, 57.
He said psychiatric help was "something we have looked at, and Amy is no way near in a position to be sectioned".
He added: "But unless she wants to do it of her own accord, it's pointless. You can't lock the key and say 'you can't come out before you're better'. That's called abduction."
Mr Winehouse described the pictures from the drugs video as "horrible", adding: "Her intake had been much reduced, but there are people around her which I have no control of. I can't physically remove them. She doesn't think she's got a problem. She thinks she can do what she does recreationally and get on with her life."
Mr Winehouse called a family meeting last night to discuss keeping a close eye on Amy to try to save her from self destruction.
And it appears he may have hired a fearsome looking balaclava-clad bodyguard to assist him in his efforts.
The powerfully-built man was seen earlier yesterday in the courtyard of Amy's east London gated apartment building dressed in black clothing and army fatigues.
Amy appeared in the background, dressed in a blue minidress as he patrolled the courtyard's perimeter.
And chillingly, he made a shooting gesture at the army of photographers who follow her every move.
On Tuesday Mitch took Amy to the Capio Nightingale Hospital, a drugs clinic in Marylebone, for a two-hour appointment in an attempt to get her to clean up her act.
Police are viewing the video footage of Amy apparently smoking crack.
The troubled stars' frantic parents have been forced to intervene following the latest revelations of the depth of Amy's drug-taking.
Her desperate father Mitch who has been driven to the end of his tether has taken matters into his own hands because he is terrified her continued drug use could kill her.
The former taxi driver has demanded that his 24 year-old daughter move home with him to keep her away from the influence of her junkie friends.
A friend of the family said: "As any father would be, Mitch is terribly concerned about Amy's latest brush with drugs.
"She has been making good progress up until this setback but for Mitch it's the last straw - if she doesn't sort herself out and get her head straight, who knows where it will end.
"Mitch is terrified about the people she associates with and thinks that by taking these low-lifes out of the equation, Amy will face less temptation.
"He's asked her to come and live with him until she's back on the straight and narrow - or ideally, until Blake comes out of custody.
"If Mitch is by her side almost 24/7 he can monitor exactly who she hangs out with and where she does it.
"Amy may be 24 but as far as Mitch is concerned, she is never too old for a good dose of family TLC."
The 19-minute video released on Tuesday showed the dishevelled singer seen snorting powdered ecstasy and cocaine before heading to her bedroom, where she inhaled crack cocaine in front of her wedding photo.
Taken in the early hours of Friday morning it showed Miss Winehouse taking drugs just hours before appearing in court to support her husband Blake Fielder Civil who appeared on charges connected with a violent bar brawl.
Police are investigating the footage before deciding whether to press charges.
A spokesman for Scotland Yard said: "Officers will be viewing the footage when we receive it. "We will then assess the footage to ascertain whether any action needs to be taken."
Aside from taking a toll on her health the drug-taking revelations could ruin Miss Winehouse's successful career.
It has been reported that her record company Island Records will consider dropping plans to promote her in the US because of the latest scandal.
There was a question over whether the US authorities will grant her a visa to go to the Grammy awards next month.
Miss Winehouse's family are hoping they will succeed where professional intervention has failed.
Miss Winehouse has made three brief and unsuccessful visits to rehab in the past year.
She made the first visit to the Causeway Clinic in Essex in August 2007 with husband Blake Fielder Civil but the pair discharged themselves after a few days.
She then checked in just weeks later after publicly overdosing on a cocktail of drink and drugs.
She spent two days at the same addiction centre - which costs £10,000 a week - before storming out and vowing never to return.
In November last year Winehouse pulled out of a concert in Bournemouth, after stumbling and slurring her words on stage, and promised to seek help for drug addiction after being jeered off stage by fans.
She was seen by doctors at the London Clinic in Harley Street before being admitted back into the Causeway Clinic.
Amy has moved in with her father Mitch Winehouse and left the North London home she shared with husband Blake Fielder Civil - the scene of the infamous crack-smoking video.
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Geri Halliwell has been secretly dating comedian David Walliams since the New Year, according to a report.
The Spice Girl has been friends with the Little Britain star for a few years but they have only recently become an item.
"They have been secretly dating since the New Year and nobody knows," a source told the Mirror, adding: "They are very tactile with each other and he's such a gent.
"Geri just can't stop smiling... They will be gutted when news of their relationship leaks as until now they've been able to carry on without anyone knowing."
Meanwhile, Geri's bandmates have suggested that George Clooney ask her out following his recent praise for her charity efforts and admission that she was his favorite Spice Girl.
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