Recent Stories of Interest from “Around the Pro Tennis Globe” (December 11)

• Croatian standout Ivan Ljubicic and wife Aida had their first child on Wednesday, naming their new son, Leonardo.
  
  
• Former World No. 2 Tommy Haas announced that he has resumed practicing on-court and hopes to compete in the Australian Open in mid-January. The 30-year-old German, who trains in Florida, has not played a competitive ATP match since losing to Gilles Muller in the second round of the 2008 US Open.
  
  
• Regarding the Gillette Fusion Champions commercial featuring Roger Federer, golfer Tiger Woods and soccer star Thierry Henry, a British advertising industry magazine gave the commercial the honor of “worst ad of the year” in Campaign Magazine’s Top Turkeys of 2008 list.
  
  
• Former French player Nicolas Escude has been named the new captain of the French Fed Cup team.
  
  
• L’Equipe reports that rising French star Gael Monfils has cut ties with controversial acupuncturist Phillippe Manicom. The report said that the falling out between Monfils and Manicom was most likely due to a personality conflict between Monfils’ new coach Roger Rasheed.
  
  
• United States top-ranked doubles duo Bob and Mike Bryan are hosting a party in Las Vegas set for December 14th at Lavo, with doors opening at 11pm. It’s all apart of their Camp Bryan II weekend.
  
  
• Spanish Davis Cup hero Fernando Verdasco will replace double-booked Ernests Gulbis of Latvia in the upcoming Kooyong exhibition event. American James Blake also scheduled two events during that week and will be replaced by Carlos Moya, a former Australian Open finalist.
  
  
• Google’s annual Zeitgeist report, which are figures based on the most searched phrases on Google indicate the following:
  1. Rafael Nadal was the most searched athlete in Spain, while Roger Federer was No. 8 in Nadal’s home country.
  2. In Switzerland, Roger Federer was the second most searched person behind USA President-Elect Barack Obama.
  3. Tennis came in as the fourth most searched Olympic sport this year in the United States.
  4. In the Czech Republic, tennis was the seventh most searched sport.