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Italy's Flavia Pennetta advanced to her first Australian Open quarter-final with as much relief as delight on Sunday just weeks after suffering a left wrist injury that she thought could rule her out of the Melbourne Park tournament. _0"> Pennetta had reason to be worried after an injury to her right wrist required surgery in 2012, leading her to spend six months on the sidelines, miss last year's Australian Open and watch her ranking drop to 166 by June. "It was a really difficult moment, because I didn't know what I had," the 31-year-old told reporters after she advanced to the quarter-finals following a 6-1 4-6 7-5 victory over ninth-seeded German Angelique Kerber. "I had an MRI (scan) five days after which turned out to be pretty good because my ligament and my tendon were fine," she added of the injury she sustained at the Hopman Cup in Perth and forced her out of the Hobart International. "Just a strain." Pennetta, who has w

Serena Williams admitted that a bad back sustained during practice hampered her movement during her shock fourth round loss to Ana Ivanovic on Sunday, but refused to blame the injury for her stunning exit that blew the Australian Open wide open. Raging favorite to clinch her 18th grand slam title and sixth at Melbourne Park, the world number one was overhauled 4-6 6-3 6-3 in front of an astonished Rod Laver Arena crowd as the resurgent Ivanovic soared to her finest victory in years. Williams crashed out in a hail of 31 unforced errors and managed only three winners in the third set as the anticipated fightback the American has counted on throughout her career failed to materialize. Her coach Patrick Mouratoglou, who talked up a serious tilt at a calendar grand slam before the tournament, said Williams had "blocked" her back during practice before her third round match against Daniela Hantuchova. "I guess the secret is out, but I obviously wasn't hitting the way

An inspired Ana Ivanovic blew the race for the Australian Open women's title wide open with a stunning upset of overwhelming favorite Serena Williams in the fourth round on Sunday. The 14th ranked Serb played the match of her life to come from a set down and secure the biggest shock of the tournament so far with a 4-6 6-3 6-3 victory over the world number one. Fourth seed Li Na and Italy's Flavia Pennetta, who both won fourth round matches earlier on Sunday, will have considerably more to play for in their quarter-final now the 17-times grand slam champion has been removed from their path. Ivanovic, who will meet Casey Dellacqua or Eugenie Bouchard in her quarter-final, said she held nothing back against the top seeded American. "It's amazing, when I came onto court I was just hoping to play as well as I could," she said. "I just went out there swinging at the ball and I did it really well." Williams admitted to not feeling her best but offered no

As a squat, red-and-black robot nicknamed CHIMP gingerly pushed open a spring-loaded door a gust of wind swooped down onto the track at the Homestead-Miami Speedway and slammed the door shut, eliciting a collective sigh of disappointment from the audience. The robot, developed by the Tartan Rescue team from the National Robotics Engineering Center at Carnegie Mellon University, is one of 17 competing in the U.S. military's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Robotics Challenge. The agency, which funded basic science research for now commonplace technologies like the Internet and global positioning satellites, hopes the competition will spur the development of robots that can work in places too dangerous for humans. The challenge was launched in 2011 in response to the meltdown of Japan's Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant after it was hit by a massive earthquake-spawned tsunami. Nearly 160,000 people were forced to flee the area. The backup power sy

Two NASA astronauts, their spacesuits rigged with snorkels in case of a water leak, floated outside the International Space Station for 5-1/2 hours on Saturday, successfully completing the first steps to fix the outpost's cooling system. The spacewalk, which was broadcast live on NASA Television, was the first for NASA since July when the spacesuit helmet worn by Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano began filling with water, a situation that could have caused him to drown. No such leaks were detected in Saturday's spacewalk, the first of two or possibly three that will be needed to complete the cooling system repair. The operation was prompted by the December 11 shutdown of one of the station's two U.S. ammonia cooling systems, which forced the crew to turn off non-essential equipment and shut down dozens of science experiments. While the six-member crew is not in danger, the remaining cooling system cannot support the three laboratories and other modules on the U.S. side

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are planning a second and final spacewalk to fix the outpost's cooling system early on Tuesday, a NASA official said. NASA astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins are expected to leave the station's Quest airlock to install a new ammonia pump, space station flight director Judd Frieling said during an interview on NASA Television on Monday. During an initial spacewalk on Saturday, Mastracchio and Hopkins removed a failed pump, accomplishing about half the work planned for the second spacewalk. That prompted the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to drop plans for a third spacewalk, provided that no problems occur on Tuesday. "It's apparent now that we'll be able to get most of our critical objectives done tomorrow (Tuesday)," Frieling said. One of two cooling systems on the U.S. side of the space station, a $100 billion project of 15 nations, shut down on December 11 due to a faulty valve.

As a squat, red-and-black robot nicknamed CHIMP gingerly pushed open a spring-loaded door a gust of wind swooped down onto the track at the Homestead-Miami Speedway and slammed the door shut, eliciting a collective sigh of disappointment from the audience. The robot, developed by the Tartan Rescue team from the National Robotics Engineering Center at Carnegie Mellon University, was one of 17 competing in the U.S. military's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Robotics Challenge. The agency, which funded basic science research for now commonplace technologies like the Internet and global positioning satellites, hopes the competition will spur the development of robots that can work in places too dangerous for humans. The challenge was launched in 2011 in response to the meltdown of Japan's Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant after it was hit by a massive earthquake-spawned tsunami. Nearly 160,000 people were forced to flee the area. The backup power s