The match included 25 double faults, one on a second serve that landed wide of the doubles alley. There were 91 unforced errors and 13 service breaks, resulting in 21/2 hours of fitful tennis.

Maria Sharapova and Venus Williams played Sunday for the first time since the 2005 Wimbledon semifinals. Sharapova was slightly less erratic, winning 2-6, 6-2, 7-5 in the third round of the Sony Ericsson Open.

Sharapova overcame 13 double faults to exact a measure of revenge from the Williams family. She was routed by Serena Williams in the Australian Open final in January.

Serena’s match against No. 23 Lucie Safarova was postponed until today because of rain. The winner will play Sharapova Tuesday.

Top-ranked Justine Henin rallied from a 5-1 deficit in the third set to beat Virginie Razzano, 6-2, 2-6, 7-6 (5). Defending champion Svetlana Kuznetsova and No. 4-seeded Kim Clijsters also advanced, but No. 5 Martina Hingis lost to Agnieszka Radwanska, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2. Hingis did become the fourth player to reach the $20 million mark in earnings, joining Steffi Graf, Lindsay Davenport and Martina Navratilova.

On the men’s side, No. 3 seed Andy Roddick, who has not lost his serve in two matches, beat No. 32 Gilles Simon, 6-4, 6-4. Roddick’s fourth-round opponent will be No. 13 David Ferrer, who won when they met in the quarterfinals a year ago. No. 2 seed Rafael Nadal advanced when Olivier Rochus pulled out with a foot injury.

The murky circumstances surrounding Anna Nicole Smith’s death could become clearer today, when authorities are expected to release the results of the former pinup’s autopsy.

The anticipated disclosure of what killed Smith comes more than six weeks after she was found unresponsive at her hotel suite in Hollywood, Fla.
The autopsy results had been expected weeks ago but have been repeatedly delayed, in part because the Broward County medical examiner, Dr. Joshua Perper, said he received additional evidence from the Seminole Police Department. The department is investigating the starlet’s death because the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino where she was staying is on tribal land.
Authorities would not disclose what the additional evidence was.
Perper’s initial tests found no evidence, either in Smith’s stomach or her bloodstream, that she had taken large amounts of prescription medication. The medical examiner said prescription drugs, but no illegal drugs, were found in Smith’s hotel room. He would not identify the drugs.

Mao Anqing, the only known surviving son of Mao Zedong, the late founder of China’s communist government, has died, a government news agency reported Saturday. He was 84. Mao Anqing died Friday, the China News Service said, without citing a cause of death. He had no role in government, suffered from psychiatric problems and is believed to have spent much of his adult life in mental hospitals. Born in 1923, Mao Anqing was the second son of Mao and his first wife, Yang Kaihui, while they were activists. Yang was executed in 1930 by the then-ruling Nationalist government.

Calvert DeForest, the white-haired, bespectacled nebbish who gained cult status as the oddball Larry “Bud” Melman on David Letterman’s late night television shows, died Monday after a long illness. He was 85. The New York-born DeForest died at a hospital on Long Island, Letterman’s “Late Show” announced Wednesday. He made dozens of appearances on Letterman’s shows from 1982 through 2002, handling a variety of twisted duties: dueting with Sonny Bono on “I Got You, Babe,” doing a Mary Tyler Moore impression during a visit to Minneapolis, handing out hot towels to arrivals at the Port Authority Bus Terminal. The gnomish DeForest was the first face to greet viewers when Letterman’s NBC show debuted on Feb. 1, 1982, offering a parody of the prologue to the Boris Karloff film “Frankenstein.” DeForest, given the nom de tube of Melman, became a program regular. The collaboration continued when the talk show host launched the “Late Show with David Letterman” on CBS in 1993, though DeForest had to use his real name because of a dispute with NBC over “intellectual property.” Cue cards were often DeForest’s television kryptonite, and his character inevitably appeared in an ill-fitting black suit behind thick black-rimmed glasses. DeForest often drew laughs with his bizarre juxtaposition as a “Late Show” correspondent at events such as the 1994 Winter Olympics in Norway or the anniversary Woodstock concert that year. His last appearance on the “Late Show,” celebrating his 81st birthday, came in 2002.

Actor Woody Harrelson’s father, Charles Harrelson, died of a heart attack in the Supermax federal prison in Denver where he was serving two life sentences for the murder of a federal judge, officials said Wednesday. He was 69. Charles Harrelson was found unresponsive in his cell March 15, said Felicia Ponce, a Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman in Washington. Fremont County Coroner Dorothy Twellman said an autopsy showed Harrelson had severe coronary artery disease. Charles Harrelson was convicted of murder in the May 29, 1979, slaying of U.S. District Judge John Wood Jr. outside his San Antonio home. Prosecutors said a drug dealer hired him to kill Wood because he did not want the judge to preside at his trial. Charles Harrelson denied the killing, saying he was in Dallas, 270 miles away, at the time. The actor was just 7 when his father was first sent to prison, for murdering a Texas businessman. He was in college when his father was convicted of the judge’s killing.

Robert E. Petersen, the publishing magnate whose Hot Rod and Motor Trend magazines helped shape America’s car culture and who gave millions to a museum dedicated to his passion, has died. He was 80. Petersen died Friday of complications from neuroendocrine cancer at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, said Dick Messer, director of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. “Mr. Petersen helped create and feed the American obsession with the automobile, delivering gasoline-powered dreams to the mailboxes of millions,” Messer said. By the time his publishing empire was sold in 1996, Petersen Publishing’s annual revenue was about $275 million. He later donated $25 million to pay off the debt of the Peterson Automotive Museum he opened in 1994.

Herman Stein, a composer whose music for “It Came From Outer Space,” “Creature from the Black Lagoon,” and “The Incredible Shrinking Man” helped define the dramatic soundtrack of 1950s science fiction and horror movies, has died. He was 91. tein died of congestive heart failure at his Los Angeles home on March 15, his record producer, David Schecter, said Friday. As a staff composer at iversal Studios, Stein collaborated with Henry Mancini and others to create music for nearly 200 movies and shorts, though he didn’t get credit for all of his work because of the studio’s tendency to give solo credit to a project’s music supervisor.

Richard Conway Casey, who was the nation’s first blind federal trial judge and presided over high-profile cases including an abortion-law challenge and the Peter Gotti trial, died Thursday. He was 74. Casey’s death was confirmed by his office in New York. The cause was an apparent heart attack. Casey was nominated for federal judgeship by President Clinton in 1997, 10 years after he became blind from an inherited degenerative eye disease. He was a fixture in U.S. District Court in lower Manhattan, arriving each morning with his guide dog, Barney.

Singer Carol Richards, who was known for recording “Silver Bells” with Bing Crosby, has died, her family said Friday. She was 84. Richards died of kidney failure March 16 at the Indian River Memorial Hospital in Vero Beach, Fla., her husband Edward Swiedler said. Richards dubbed the singing voice of actresses in movie musicals including Cyd Charisse with Gene Kelly in “Brigadoon,” Swiedler said. She married Swiedler in 1966 after she moved to the Boston area, he said.

Walter Turnbull, who founded the Boys Choir of Harlem and led the organization to international acclaim and performances at the White House and Vatican, died Friday. He was 62. Turnbull died in a New York City hospital, said his brother, Horace Turnbull. He said Turnbull had suffered a stroke months earlier. Turnbull’s death marked the latest in a sad string of events for the famed choir, which has been reeling from scandal since a choirboy accused a counselor six years ago of sexually abusing him. City investigators chided Turnbull for his handling of the allegations. He founded the choir at the Ephesus Church in 1968 and built the after-school program into the 600-student Choir Academy of Harlem, which opened in 1993. The choir has released albums and been heard on the soundtracks of films such as “Jungle Fever,” “Malcolm X” and “Glory.”

Beyond its musical training, the choir provides educational and personal counseling each year to hundreds of inner-city children ages 9 to 19.

Michael Coers, who helped his newspapers win a Pulitzer Prize with his photograph of a black student and a white student as Louisville, Ky., schools desegregated in 1975, died Sunday of natural causes. He was 62. Coers was found dead in his Louisville home, said his former wife, June Clausen Coers, who had been there to visit. Coers’ photograph was taken at what had been an all-white elementary school until the first day of court-ordered busing. The photograph showed the two students shaking hands in a classroom that was empty except for the boys. It was among the photographs that earned The Courier-Journal and Louisville Times photo department the Pulitzer the following year.

Catherine Seipp, a conservative columnist and media critic who wrote for Buzz magazine and National Review Online, has died. She was 49. Seipp, a nonsmoker, died Wednesday of lung cancer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, said her father, Harvey Seipp. She was diagnosed five years ago and wrote about her illness on her blog, “Cathy’s World.” Seipp, a Republican, weighed in on conservative hot-button issues ranging from Hollywood liberals to government recognition of gay marriage. Most recently, she wrote a column called “From the Left Coast” for National Review Online and a monthly column for the Independent Women’s Forum.

Milton Wexler, a prominent Hollywood psychoanalyst whose efforts to find a cure for the disease that killed his wife led scientists to pinpoint the Huntington’s gene, has died. He was 98. Wexler died of respiratory failure at his home on March 16, his daughters said. Though trained in law and psychology, Wexler spent much of the past three decades unlocking the mysteries of Huntington’s disease, a rare, incurable genetic disorder that slowly killed his wife, her father and three brothers. Wexler launched what is now known as the Hereditary Disease Foundation in 1968, when his wife, Leonore Wexler, got the Huntington’s diagnosis. That meant the couple’s daughters, Alice and Nancy, had a 50 percent risk of also inheriting the disease.

Albert V. Baez, father of folk singers Joan Baez and the late Mimi Farina, died Tuesday. He was 94. Baez died of natural causes at a California elder care facility, the San Mateo County coroner’s office said. Born in Puebla, Mexico, and reared in New York City, Baez was a distinguished academic with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Drew University, a master’s in math from Syracuse University and a doctorate in physics from Stanford University. He taught physics at several universities, including Stanford. A Quaker, Baez was an active supporter of Bread & Roses, a nonprofit that brings free live entertainment to hospitals, youth facilities, prisons and other institutions. The group was founded by his daughter Mimi Farina, who died of cancer in 2001.

The murky investigation into model-actress Anna Nicole Smith’s death was expected to get some clarity Monday when authorities finally plan to release the results of her autopsy.

The expected disclosure of what killed Smith comes more than six weeks after she was found unresponsive at her hotel suite in Hollywood, Florida. During this time, rumors have swirled and court battles have been waged for control of her body and her infant daughter.

Smith’s autopsy was expected to be released weeks ago, but has been repeatedly delayed, in part because the Broward County medical examiner, Dr. Joshua Perper, said he had received additional evidence from the Seminole Police Department, which is investigating the starlet’s death because the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino where she was staying is located on tribal land.

Authorities would not disclose what the additional evidence was.

Because Smith’s death was so sudden and because her 20-year-old son Daniel died under suspicious circumstances five months earlier, speculation about possible criminal activity surrounding the deaths has been intense. The Seminoles have refused to comment on the nature of their probe, though Perper’s initial examination revealed no serious physical injury.

Perper has said he is unaware of any criminal investigation. The Broward County state attorney’s office has said no such probe is under way. The Seminoles, who initially said there was no indication the voluptuous blonde was the victim of a crime, have remained silent since and are expected to release little information about their investigation even after Monday because they are immune to Freedom of Information laws as an American Indian tribe.

After the results of Perper’s initial autopsy were released a day after Smith’s death, the medical examiner said an extensive battery of tests was being performed, to search for all manner of causes, even those as far-fetched as radioactive poisoning.

Perper’s initial tests found no evidence, either in Smith’s stomach or her bloodstream, that she had taken large amounts of prescription medication. The medical examiner said prescription drugs, but no illegal drugs, were found in Smith’s hotel room. He would not identify the drugs.

The initial examination also found signs of inflammation in Smith’s heart. Perper said it was “something which looks a little bit unusual” but he also noted it “may be nothing.”

Smith arrived at the Hard Rock on Feb. 5 and planned to leave four days later aboard a new yacht her companion Howard K. Stern was arranging to buy. She was seldom seen outside her room during her stay. She was said to be suffering from a stomach flu before her Feb. 8 death.

Smith was a Texas girl who went from topless dancer to Playboy Playmate of the Year, Guess jeans model and bride of 89-year-old oilman J. Howard Marshall II. She took her fight for his estimated $500 million fortune as far as the U.S. Supreme Court and the ongoing battle could make her daughter Dannielynn a very rich baby. Stern and two other men have claimed they are the baby’s father.

Prince Harry’s alleged assault on British photographer Nirach Tanner in London has been completely denied by Clarence House.

Harry, 22, allegedly swore at and attacked Tanner while leaving the celebrity hotspot Boujis at 3 a.m. Sunday, Britain’s Sky News reported.

The officer of the Blues and Royals is pictured in newspapers standing behind Tanner, who still claims the Prince tried to assault him.

“He screamed at me … then grabbed me and tried to shove me over. He had his hands around my collar and back,” Tanner told the News of the World. “It was an assault. I’ve never known anything like it before.”

But, a spokesman from Clarence House denied that Prince Harry was involved in any wrongdoings with the paparazzi.

“He was out with friends and on the way out of the nightclub he stumbled on the curb and fell on the photographer,” he said. “There was no aggressive intent, they were laughing at it at the time.”

© 2007 UPI