"However, I felt I was being marginalised to an ever greater degree. As I understood, Laurent and myself were the on-field coaches. In reality, my role diminished by the day, and despite considerable support from the players, I felt I had no option but to leave."Meanwhile, serious bad blood has developed between the newly-promoted Leeds club and the South African Rugby Football Union after the Yorkshiremen announced that two Cape Town-based internationals, the goal-kicking midfielder Braam van Straaten and the tight-head prop Cobus Visagie, had signed two-year contracts at Headingley. According to Anthony Mackaiser, a member of the Sarfu management, the contracts were "null and void", and he threatened to report the matter to the International Rugby Board unless Leeds terminated negotiations immediately.Sarfu is querying the Van Straaten deal on procedural grounds, although it privately accepts that he will join Leeds from Western Province when the Currie Cup, South Africa's domestic competition, winds up in November.
More worryingly for Leeds, the South Africans consider Visagie to be completely off limits. The prop was not awarded a central Sarfu contract at the start of the southern hemisphere season, but Mackaiser insisted he was under contract with Western Province until 2003. That presumably came as a surprise to both Visagie and Leeds, for the player has repeatedly maintained he is not contracted to anyone."As far as we are concerned, Cobus is booked on a flight to England on Monday and he may be considered for our Premiership game at London Irish on Saturday week," said the Leeds spokesman, Phil Daly. Meanwhile, the club's director of rugby, Phil Davies, was in celebratory mood. "These signings will raise a few eyebrows in the game," he said. He certainly hit the nail on the head there.Even if both men eventually surface in the Ridings, there may be a nasty sting in the tail for Leeds. Sarfu could demand a hefty development fee of the kind complicating Newport's pursuit of the Springbok scrum-half Joost van der Westhuizen..
Serena Williams flipped through her calendar and decided there were far too many blank pages in there, too many gaps in the schedule of a world–class tennis player. Serena Williams flipped through her calendar and decided there were far too many blank pages in there, too many gaps in the schedule of a world–class tennis player. That will not be the case next season. Williams says she intends to play more matches and more tournaments, part of a plan to turn her game up a notch or two.Tennis rewards busy players with better rankings. Martina Hingis, without a Grand Slam victory since 1999, nevertheless remains No. 1, largely because she plays a full schedule, showing up every week, earning points every week.One of the criticisms of the Williams sisters, Serena and Venus, is they don't play as often as they might. For Serena, at least, that is about to change."I'm definitely going to play more next year," she said Wednesday after a 6–1, 6–1 victory over the Czech Republic's Denisa Chladkova that put her in the third round of the U.S. Open.Then she started planning, thinking out loud."Maybe more in the earlier part of the year to make sure I can do well at the Australian Open," she said.
"Maybe I'll play more clay court events because I haven't had any clay court warmups before I played the French Open. ..."I'm definitely going to try to do better at those two Slams in particular. They are just as important as the rest."Williams reached the quarterfinals at Australia before losing to Hingis and again was a quarterfinalist at the French Open and Wimbledon, beaten in both tournaments by Jennifer Capriati. But she played in just five other events before the Open – half as many as Hingis.It was that limited schedule that added up to a No.
10 seeding for the Open's 1999 champion and left some skeptical about Serena."I've always been serious about my game," she said. "But I think now maybe I'm a little more serious, I guess, if you want to put it that way I'm just really geared up to move up to the next level I've been on the same level for a little too long now. It's time to move on, to let it go."For me, the next level is top three and then top place. Obviously, I haven't been able to reach that because I'm not playing the tournaments I need to play.