Italy clinched their second Fed Cup final with a 4-0 victory over the United States on Sunday.

The U.S. were hampered by Serena and Venus Williams opting not to compete. But as Mark Meadows discusses above, would it be better for America if the pair definitively ended their Fed Cup careers?

(additional reporting by Marie-Louise Gumuchian)

“I was worried for a moment but not for long. I was actually excited about telling the world the whole story,” Andre Agassi said.

Except this was no ordinary story. One of the greatest players to have graced a tennis court had just revealed that he had taken drugs and then lied to the ATP about the circumstances surrounding his positive dope test in 1997.

The eight-times grand slam champion took the recreational drug crystal meth 12 years ago when his career was floundering – he found himself playing on the challenger circuit after sliding down the rankings to 141st in the world.

Although the substance may not be performance enhancing, the question on every tennis fan’s lips since the news broke is “Why?”

Why did Agassi take it? Why did the governing body of tennis clear him of any wrongdoing? And why did he disclose this bombshell now when he had effectively got away with it?

It is hard to believe that a popular sportsman who made over $31 million in prize money and several times that amount in endorsement deals would want to drag his own name through the mud just to get some publicity for his autobiography.

But that is effectively what he has done.

“His book will probably sell. It seems very interesting, to say the least,” fellow American Venus Williams said.

Unfortunately he has also left the ATP in a difficult position, even if it was an independent tribunal which cleared him of any wrongdoing in 1997.

Officials who investigated his failed dope test believed his letter of explanation, which Agassi now says “was full of lies, interwoven with the truth”.

For a man who once graced television screens with the catchphrase “Image is Everything”, he might find that he has now done irreparable damage to his own reputation.

PHOTO: Former champion Andre Agassi salutes the crowd during the opening ceremony at the U.S. Open tennis tournament in New York, August 31, 2009. REUTERS/Shaun Best

Eight-times grand slam winner Andre Agassi left the tennis world in a state of shock on Wednesday when he admitted using the recreational drug crystal meth and lying to men’s governing body the ATP to escape a ban.

In his autobiography “Open”, the American candidly describes being introduced to the drug in 1997 and the moment when he was informed he had failed a drugs test.

International Tennis Federation (ITF) president Francesco Ricci Bitti said he was “surprised and disappointed” by the revelations and World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) chief John Fahey called on the ATP to “shed light” on the circumstances that allowed Agassi to escape sanction.

Should there be any punishment against the retired 39-year-old?

PHOTO: Andre Agassi of the U.S. looks on during an exhibition tennis match against compatriot Pete Sampras at Venetian Macao in Macau October 25, 2009. REUTERS/Bobby Yip

Reuters photographer Aly Song caught Tommy Robredo making this gesture to the crowd during a third round defeat to compatriot Rafa Nadal at the Shanghai Masters on Thursday.

The Spaniard was upset at the noise the crowd, who overwhelmingly backed Nadal, were making during the match.

Robredo is not the first international sportsman to be unhappy at Chinese crowds not observing the etiquette of spectating at tennis and golf events.

It’s not the most orginial of thoughts, but why should tennis players and golfers expect silence to do their jobs when other sportsmen are not afforded such conditions?

A rowdy, cheering crowd might even improve the atmosphere.  

Marat Safin and his sister Dinara Safina both made emotional departures from the China Open this week but for very different reasons.

Safin, 29, has decided to hang up his racket at the end end of the season after 12 years as a professional and organisers of the Beijing event held a special farewell ceremony for him after his entertaining defeat to Rafa Nadal in the quarter-finals.

Nadal had found himself in the unusual position of having fans cheering for his opponent as the Russian former world number one continued to reap the dividends of being the first China Open champion back in 2004.

Safin was clearly moved by the post-match ceremony, which included a video message from Safina, and if he said thank you to the Beijing fans once, he said it a thousand times. 

Safina, by contrast, left the centre court in tears on Monday after suffering the ignomony of the worst upset for a number one in the history of the rankings at the hands of 226th-ranked Chinese wild card Zhang Shuai.

The defeat, which followed early upsets at the U.S. Open and Pan Pacific Open in preceding tournaments, means Serena Williams will end the Russian’s controversial 25-week reign as number one on Monday.

Marat, a former world number one and Australian Open champion, was asked to offer some advice to his sister and, although sympathetic, his reply reflected the hard-nosed attitude of a man coming to the end of 12 years of professional tennis.    

 ”It’s a tough sport. It’s not a team sport; you can’t blame others on the team,” he said. “It’s just you and how you can manage yourself along on tour and she is getting stronger and managed to get into first spot. It is already a big deal because no one expected her to be anywhere close, even in the top ten.

“She playing great at the moment, but she has ups and downs and hopefully she can recover from that and she will. Sometimes you have to deal with the difficulties and I think she has. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.

“So, if she is positive in this small crisis, she will be a great player.”

Photos by REUTERS/David Gray

Former world number one Justine Henin is poised to announce her comeback to professional tennis 16 months after she retired, Belgian media reported on Tuesday.

Henin, 27, will make the announcement on the evening news shows of French-language stations RTBF and RTL in Belgium, a number of newspapers reported.

The Belgian, who retired in May 2008 at the age of 25 saying she no longer had any passion for the game, had been scheduled to play exhibitions in Dubai and Belgium in November and December.

The seven-time Grand Slam winner has witnessed the return of compatriot Kim Clijsters, who won the U.S. Open a week ago after just a month back on the professional circuit after starting a family.

Can Henin repeat Clijsters’ stunning success to add another famous Belgian to the list?

PHOTO: Justine Henin of Belgium eyes the ball during her match against Serena Williams of U.S. at the Sony Ericsson Open tennis tournament in Key Biscayne, Florida April 1, 2008. REUTERS/Robert Sullivan

Four-times U.S. Open champion John McEnroe now works as a TV commentator for CBS network and for cable sports giant ESPN at Flushing Meadows, but the opinionated former bad boy of tennis did not hesitate airing his views to Reuters about the dubious scheduling of matches at the Open and other subjects.

McEnroe hit out particularly at the so-called Super Saturday program that calls for the men’s semi-finals and the women’s final, with the men’s championship match to follow on Sunday, providing no day of rest for the guys in between and putting the tournament’s grand finale at the whim of weather.

“I suppose it’s something CBS prefers for their schedule, maybe they get more people watching on the weekend but as far as the quality of play, it’s impossible to get that if you’re playing two best-of-five sets two days in a row.”

Asked about the chances for change in the Super Saturday schedule to provide more cushion to the players and schedule-makers, McEnroe was dubious.

“So far I’ve never seen that discussed seriously,” he said. “It’s a players’ call. They have to put their foot down, say ‘we’re not going to accept it.’

“I don’t see that changing. Maybe the players don’t care about it that much.”

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Before the tournament, McEnroe predicted that an Andy would win the men’s crown — either Briton Andy Murray or American Andy Roddick.

“I thought that potentially Roddick would use what happened at Wimbledon to fuel him,” he said about the American’s brilliant five-set marathon against Roger Federer in the Wimbledon final.

“As far as Murray, I was just amazed. He looked completely flat as a pancake for what was at stake and he didn’t dig for it,” McEnroe said, questioning his effort. “Maybe the pressure was too great.”

McEnroe contrasted Murray’s 7-5 6-2 6-2 losing performance against Marin Cilic to Rafael Nadal’s efforts to carry on despite being troubled by a strained abdominal muscle to reach the semi-finals.

“Look at Nadal, trying to find a way. I didn’t get that feeling from Murray.”

PICTURE: Former tennis player John McEnroe watches the Los Angeles Lakers play the Utah Jazz during their NBA basketball game in Los Angeles January 2, 2009. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

Argentine Juan Martin del Potro has beaten Roger Federer to win in the U.S. Open and end the Swiss master’s five-year domination of the title.

Does this mark the arrival of an exciting new 20-year-old talent or is it merely another reminder that Federer is no longer the force he once was? Or should we just enjoy another superb men’s grand slam final?

Your thoughts please.

It was not part of Kim Clijsters’s grand plan, and that made her U.S. Open victory feel surreal to the Belgian.

“I can’t believe this happened,” the 26-year-old Clijsters told reporters following her grand slam triumph on Sunday after taking more than two years off to start a family.

“It still seems so surreal that in my third tournament back I won my second grand slam, because it wasn’t in the plan.

“I just wanted to come here and get a feel for it all over again, play a grand slam so starting the next year I didn’t have to go through all the new experiences over again.”

Instead, she experienced winning the Open all over again with her 7-5 6-3 triumph over 19-year-old Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark.

PHOTO: Kim Clijsters of Belgium carries her daughter Jada while holding the trophy after defeating Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark in the women’s singles final at the U.S. Open tennis tournament in New York, September 13, 2009. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

As mayor of Beijing for most of the period running up to the 2008 Olympics and now Vice Premier of China with responsibility for financial and economic affairs, Wang Qishan has been a very busy man over the last few years.

He has, however, made time to indulge his passion for tennis and been highly influential in the growth of the China Open tournament, now one of the top events in women’s tennis with ambitions of becoming an Asian major.

Wang also likes to take to the court, and who can blame him when he is offered the chance to trade forehands with some of the best women in the professional game?

“I know for a fact he’s played many of our (women) players behind closed doors, as have many members of the standing committee,” Beijing-based WTA President David Shoemaker revealed during an interview with Reuters this week.

“It’s often been boasted that that’s one of the rare opportunities outside of one of the standing committee meetings, where you get three or four of the members together.

“But when you get Maria Sharapova, Elena Dementieva and Serena Williams eager to have a hit with you, it can mobilise forces pretty quickly.”

Even as Vice Premier, Wang is not senior enough to take a place in the nine-strong Politburo Standing Committee, the highest decision-making body in China.  

PHOTO: Maria Sharapova in Beijing in 2005 by Jason Lee.