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Olympic golden boy Ian Thorpe has reportedly been admitted to rehab as he fights depression and booze.
Australia’s greatest Olympian - dubbed The Thorpedo - is said to have checked into hospital.
Family members revealed the 31-year-old had hurt himself in a fall at his parents’ home in Sydney before seeking medical help.
The five-time Olympic gold medallist revealed his struggles in an autobiography he published last year.
He wrote:
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Andy Murray played hardball in the baseball stadium on Friday night, as he got Great Britain off to the smoothest of starts in this intriguing Davis Cup tie.
At Petco Park, the home of the San Diego Padres, Murray demolished Donald Young of the USA in just 98 minutes: 6-1, 6-2, 6-3.
Murray had lost to Young before, in one of his spring slumps after the Australian Open, but there was little chance of a repeat here once he had found his feet on a slippery but slow-paced clay court.
The match was competitive for around five minutes, which was about as long as it took Murray to survive a tense opening service game that featured two deuces. After that, he cranked up his forehand and started playing some high-level tennis.
For a man who has never been comfortable on clay courts in the past, it was an encouraging display. Realistically, Great Britain's prospects of winning this tie depend on Murray being able to deliver three points – one of them with the help of Colin Fleming in today's doubles.
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26 Jan 2014It is thus crucial for Britain's greatest asset to conserve energy over the weekend, and yesterday he was magnificently economical. Young could not handle Murray's accuracy and authority, despite enthusiastic support from the 4,000-odd fans at Petco Park and pep talks from his team captain Jim Courier, whose natty grey suit made him resemble one of the Premier League's more elegant continental managers.
A left-hander ranked No. 79 in the world, Young is perhaps not best suited to playing on a surface as slow as this one. The USA have not hosted a home tie on clay for more than 20 years, but they had hoped to have John Isner – the world No. 13 and a proficient dirtballer – to lead their team.
Unfortunately Isner was ruled out by an ankle injury and they have ended up with Sam Querrey – who was due to face British No. 2 James Ward in the second match yesterday – plus the erratic and unpredictable Young. As a man who likes to come forward, and has more touch in his hands than power in his groundstrokes, Young would surely have preferred a slick hard court.
It is possible that Young could end up playing a decisive anchor leg in this tie on Sunday afternoon, when it will be his turn to face Ward. The Briton is ranked 96 places below him but he will have observed Young's tendency to throw in a duff game amid some bold stroke play. It took the
American until midway through the third set to even earn a break point, and then he was unable to convert.
Despite Murray's fine start, he and the British team have not been delighted with the quality of a court that was laid only a couple of weeks ago. Clay courts normally take at least a year to bed down, so creating one from scratch is never quite the same as going out to play at Monte Carlo or Roland Garros.
The top layer of granules is so loose that the ballboys were struggling to keep their footing. Murray and Young were much steadier, having spent the past week getting the hang of it, and indeed Murray moved – and slid – with impressive control and speed. But he did call the chair umpire, Henrik Molina, down to look at a dicey patch late in the first set.
Meanwhile, Roger Federer's surprise decision to play in Switzerland's first-round tie in Novi Sad, Serbia's second city, was rewarded yesterday with a straight-sets victory over Ilija Bozoljac. The only shame is that he will not be playing Novak Djokovic on Sunday, for the world No. 2 has opted for a skiing trip to his childhood home of Kopaonik instead.
It is not common to see Federer involved in the Davis Cup at this early stage of the season. Normally he leaves his old mate Stan Wawrinka in charge and rides in at the last gasp to head off relegation in the
September play-off. But Wawrinka's recent flowering must have encouraged him to think that Switzerland could lift the Cup this year for the first time in their history.
Andy Murray
Davis CupSport »Tennis »Andy Murray »Roger Federer »Simon Briggs »Tennis action photos
Tennis action photos: the best full colour tennis action imagesAdvertisementA second pair of British brothers have died fighting for jihadists in war-torn Syria.
The unnamed fanatics, in their 20s, are originally from West London but their bodies have not been repatriated. Their deaths emerged last night after fellow Londoners Akram and Mohamed Sebah, 24 and 28, were also killed and hailed as
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Coronation Street star William Roache has told a jury he cannot recall having ever met any of the people who have made sex assault allegations against him.
The 81-year-old actor swore on the Bible as he was called to give evidence from the witness box at Preston Crown Court.
Louise Blackwell QC, defending, asked Roache: ''Have you committed any of the offences with which you have been charged?''
''No I have not,'' Roache replied.
Miss Blackwell continued: ''Do you have any memory of being in the company of any of the people that have made the allegations against you?''
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17 Jan 2014''No, not one of them,'' Roache replied.
''Do you know any of them in any way?'' Miss Blackwell said.
''No,'' the defendant replied.
''Or of them in any way?'' Miss Blackwell continued.
''No,'' he said.
Roache has pleaded not guilty to two counts of rape and four counts of indecent assault involving five complainants aged 16 and under on dates between 1965 and 1971.
Roache said he was born in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, the son of a local doctor.
His early schooling was near his home, at the Rudolph Steiner School where his grandfather had donated part of his property for its grounds.
Talking about Mr Steiner, he said: "He had an interesting philosophy about education - that school should be a place of fun. Handcrafts, dancing, painting... there was no discipline; it was not needed either."
Speaking of the effect the school had on him, he said: "I did have an interest in things from beyond the sixth sense of the normal. Spiritual matters always remained interesting."
He next went to a boarding school in North Wales, which he enjoyed less at the time. It had a more traditional academic focus with "cold baths in the morning".
Roache said he was left-handed but the school made him right-handed.
He told the jury that he joined the Army after leaving school.
He was a member of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and, in his five years of service, rose to the rank of captain, and spent two years in Oman.
In the mid-1950s he suffered an accident during live ammunition training with a mortar platoon which permanently damaged his hearing.
Roache said he felt an "obligation" to follow generations of his family who had gone into the medical profession but he was not adept at sciences.
"My mother had always been a keen amateur actress," he said. "She used to direct the amateur dramatic society in Ilkeston."
Roache won a drama prize as a youngster but initially felt he was too shy for acting, he said.
"But I did, at the age of 26, when I came out of the Army I thought I had to give it a go," he said.
"It was burning away in me."
Roache's first break on television was a lead role in Play Of The Week in 1959, he said.
Filmed at Granada Studios in Manchester, he said he had a "prestigious part" in Marking Time as a soldier who had an affair with a girl.
It caught the attention of Coronation Street author Tony Warren, who saw him perform in the studio.
"He said 'That is the person I want to play Ken Barlow'," he said.
His barrister, Miss Blackwell, asked if Coronation Street was "a new soap".
Roache replied: "I still don't like the word 'soap'."
Comparing it to the innovative kitchen sink dramas of the time, he said: "We were the first on television. It was highly prestigious, it was cutting edge. We were a drama and did it like that."
The actor said the series, filmed in black and white, was originally only commissioned for 11 weeks and that Sidney Bernstein, the head of Granada, did not believe it would work.
Law and OrderNews »UK News »Crime »In Law and Order
A judge has warned that the Internet cannot be used as a “babysitter” as he sentenced a 12-year-old for raping his younger sister after watching porn at school.
In a stark warning to teachers and parents, Judge Thomas Crowther QC said it was important to remind ourselves that the Internet is a “mirror of adulthood in all forms”.
He added that it was a “sad fact” that many young boys have been exposed to adult pornography and in this case the teenager, who has not been named, copied what he saw.
The schoolboy watched the hardcore films after searching for pornography websites with a classmate while in school.
The school has not been named but education chiefs are understood to be investigating how he accessed adult material while on the premises.
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Judge Thomas Crowther QC said: "It's a sad fact that many boys of his age will have been exposed to adult pornography.
"But not all boys exposed to it will act as he did. He found pornography online and replicated what he saw.
"Let us remind ourselves that the Internet is not a benign babysitter but a mirror of adulthood in all its forms."
The court heard the brother and sister regularly shared a bedroom together while staying with a family member.
Their parents discovered what was going on when the girl, who was under the age of 10, confided to a relative that her brother had touched her.
The boy was questioned by another family member and admitted having urges he could not control and knowing what he was doing was wrong.
The court heard the sexual abuse had been going on for a year and the teenager had watched hardcore pornography then gone home and carried out the acts on his sister.
The boy admitted three charges of rape. He was ordered to register as a sex offender for two-and-a-half years.
CrimeNews »UK News »Hayley Dixon »In Crime
