Hana Mandlikova, taking advantage of her opponent’s mistakes and playing inspired tennis, upset top-seeded Martina Navratilova 7-5, 7-6 to capture the Australian Open Women’s Singles Championship. When she ended the match by taking the second-set tiebreaker 7-1, Mandlikova became the Australian Open champion for the second time — having previously won in 1980. The victory, coming in the first grand slam event of the year, was worth $115,000 to Mandlikova, who snapped Navratilova’s 58-match winning streak. For the 24-year-old Mandlikova, born in Czechoslovakia, but now awaiting Australian citizenship, it was her first victory in her last 10 meetings with the American left-hander. The last time she had won was in the women’s title match of the 1985 US Open. Mandlikova scored only her seventh victory in 30 career meetings with Navratilova. Navratilova, the defending champion and seeking her fourth Australian Open singles crown, had problems finding her range and was frequently passed by her graceful and fluid opponent, who returned serves particularly well.
Other important events:
1848 James Marshall finds a gold nugget in US state of California, touching off Gold Rush of ’49.
1859 Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza is elected ruler of Wallachia and Moldova.
1908 The first Boy Scout troop is organised in England by Robert Baden-Powell.
1924 Petrograd is renamed Leningrad in honour of founder of the Soviet Union.
1925 Rickard Sandler becomes Prime Minister of Sweden.
1936 Albert Sarraut becomes Prime Minister of France following Pierre Laval’s resignation over the Abyssinia crisis.
1939 The deadliest earthquake strikes in Chile, approximately 28,000 people are killed.
1943 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill conclude a wartime conference in Casablanca, Morocco.
1946 UN General Assembly votes to create UN Atomic Energy Commission.
1965 Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill dies in London at 90.
1966 Indira Gandhi becomes Prime Minister of India for the first time.
1978 A nuclear-powered Soviet satellite plunges through Earth’s atmosphere and disintegrates, scattering radioactive debris.
1985 Space shuttle Discovery is launched in Nasa’s first secret military flight.
1986 British Trade Minister Leon Brittan resigns over the Westland affair.
1991 Lithuania asks Soviet Union to withdraw its troops from buildings seized in the Baltic republic.
1996 Polish Prime Minister Jozef Oleksy, accused of spying for Moscow for 13 years, resigns.
2000 A huge oil spill threatens the Abu Dhabi coastline after a ship sinks seven miles offshore.
2001 Britain’s Peter Mandelson, the minister in charge of Northern Ireland, resigns.
2002 Former Christian warlord Elie Hobeika is killed by a car bomb.
2006 Canadians elect their first Conservative government in 12 years.
2007 Russia and India strike new arms deals on the eve of Vladimir Putin’s visit.
2008 A military plane carrying officers home from a flight-safety conference crashes in north-western Poland, killing all 20 people on board.
2011 An explosion rips through the international arrivals hall at Moscow’s busiest airport, killing 35 people
2013 Al Qaida’s No 2 in Yemen Saeed Al Shehri dies of wounds sustained in a drone attack last year in southern Yemen.
2014 Ethiopian Tsegaye Mekonnen Asefa becomes the youngest ever to win the Dubai Marathon men’s event at the age of 18 years.
2016 American Rickie Fowler wins his first Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship.
