ROME

Maria Sharapova overpowered her Spanish opponent in the second round of the Italian Open, but the top-seeded Russian still has a long way to go before claiming the top ranking in women’s tennis. The Wimbledon champion needs to win the ,3-million tournament in order to overtake Lindsay Davenport for the number-one ranking.

Serena Williams is looking forward to getting her clay court game going at this week’s Italian Open. The American says she is feeling fit after a series of injury-related withdrawals since winning the Australian Open in January. ”I’m feeling pretty good and I’ve been working on my clay court game,” Williams said on Monday.

Rafael Nadal won his third straight clay-court title on Sunday by edging French Open runner-up Guillermo Coria 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, 4-6, 7-6 (6) at the Rome Masters in a match that ended in darkness and lasted more than five hours. ”This was the toughest match of my life,” Nadal said.

Spanish qualifier Nicolas Almagro upset Australian Open champion Marat Safin 6-4, 6-3 on Wednesday in the second round of the Rome Masters. Earlier, Andre Agassi managed a routine 6-2, 6-3 win over French teenager Richard Gasquet, taking just 64 minutes to defeat his 18-year-old opponent.

Andy Roddick is taking a new, lighter approach to the clay-court season. After eliminating Greg Rusedski 6-4, 6-2 on Monday in the first round of the Italian Open, top-seeded Roddick said he has lost 2,25kg off his 1,88m frame. Sixth-seeded Andre Agassi, winner of the Rome title in 2002, beat Italian wild card Alessio di Mauro 7-5, 6-2.

Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi announced on Wednesday he will resign and form a new government with a revamped programme in a bid to quell a revolt by key allies in his centre-right coalition. He told the Italian Senate that he will form a new government with the same majority.

Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi said on Wednesday that ”drastic measures” may be needed to stem the rise of violence at Italian soccer stadiums. Tuesday’s Champions League second-leg quarterfinal between Inter Milan and AC Milan was cut short late in the second half after Inter fans threw flares on to the field.

”How do we get to the end of that queue over there?” asked Patrizia Laudenzi, shielding her eyes with one hand as she peered down the Tiber. ”You’re at the end of the queue, Signora,” the police officer replied. Laudenzi gave him one of those you’re-winding-me-up-aren’t-you kind of smiles. Until she realised he wasn’t.

A man who withheld conjugal relations with his wife for seven years has been forced to pay alimony. The man refused to have sex with his wife after she opposed him in a family argument. The highest Italian appeals court found that the man’s inaction regarding his wife amounted to an "offence to her dignity".

AC Milan rejoined Juventus at the top of Serie A with a 2-0 win over Roma in Rome on Sunday for the reigning champions’ eighth consecutive league victory and their 10th in all competitions. After a goalless first half, Hernan Crespo put Milan ahead with a superb header before winning a penalty that Andrea Pirlo converted.

An Italian shopkeeper with an incurable tumour confessed to committing 13 bank robberies in 18 months but said he did it to care for his family after his death, a police official said on Monday. The 53-year-old man raked in a haul of €115 000 before being spotted by chance by plainclothes police, police said.

”It’s like this every time the pope is hospitalised,” said the doctor clad in his white coat at the entrance to Rome’s Gemelli hospital, surrounded by a crush of reporters from around the world pushing to get information about Pope John Paul II’s health. The journalists ”took all the parking spaces”, said a patient’s father.

Who will rise 86 storeys in about 45 minutes on February 1 and then plan on doing it again next year? The answer, if experience is a guide, is Chico Scimone, a 94-year-old Italian musician. Scimone will be among the more than 150 athletes taking part in the annual Fleet Empire State Building Run-Up.

A mystery bug has paralysed remote-control devices for opening car doors, garages and gates in a district of the town of Aosta in northern Italy, an environmental protection agency said on Friday. The agency, Arpa, admitted it has as yet no idea what the problem is.

The Roman Catholic Church in Italy has described as "blasphemy" an advertising campaign in Saturday’s daily newspapers using the image of the Virgin Mary holding the steering wheel of a car. The advertisement shows a minature statue of the Virgin Mary on the dashboard of a car holding a miniature wheel.

A Polish woman who pretended to be a ghost and ”haunted” an Alpine castle was sentenced to four months in prison by an Italian court on Friday. Police were called in to investigate mysterious creaking doors and other unexplained nocturnal noises heard in 15th-century Castel Coldrano, near the Swiss and Austrian borders.

European Union leaders on Friday signed a first-ever Constitution for the expanding bloc, in a landmark ceremony on the spot in Rome where its forerunner was founded nearly half a century ago. The Constitution, agreed in June after two years of haggling, aims to streamline EU institutions and prevent decision-making gridlock.

Diners in a small town in central Italy went a step beyond the vision of bulls in china shops when they witnessed a furious bull storming into their restaurant. According to media reports on Tuesday, the bull horned open the front door of the La Divina restaurant, in the town of San Vittore del Lazio, and then charged its tables, causing panic.

A driverless diesel locomotive thundered nearly 200km through southern Italy at 80kph on Friday before line staff managed to derail it at a disused station. The driver had set the engine in motion, leaned out to see if the line ahead was clear, then slipped and fell from his cabin.

Italy will stop applying European Union sanctions against Libya next week even if the measures are not lifted by the EU, Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said on Friday. He was referring to an issue that Tripoli has explicitly linked to efforts to prevent illegal immigration into Europe via its Mediterranean coastline.

The European Union, the Arab League, the pope, Muslim and pacifist groups in Italy appealed on Wednesday for the release of two Italian women abducted in Iraq while working for a humanitarian group. Simona Pari and Simona Torretta were kidnapped by an armed commando that stormed into their offices in central Baghdad.

An Italian couple undergoing fertility treatment gave birth to twins of colour following a mishap at a fertility clinic, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera said on Sunday. According to the daily, the eggs and sperm of two couples of different races receiving fertility treatment were mistakenly switched.

United Nations experts warned in Rome on Wednesday of a worsening locust crisis in Mauritania, Mali and Niger as huge swarms of the insects cut a swathe through the West African countries. North-moving swarms are threatening crops and vegetation in Mauritania, where the situation is expected to worsen.

Police in Rome have identified up to 6 000 potential targets of a terrorist attack, which are being kept under close surveillance by security forces, the city’s police chief was quoted as saying on Wednesday, as a terror group’s August 15 deadline neared for Italy to withdraw its troops from Iraq.

Italian police revealed summer holiday plans of British Prime Minister Tony Blair by inadvertently sending a memo on security measures to Italian media outlets, news agency Ansa reported on Tuesday. Blair’s wife and children will from Thursday spend a few vacation days at the estate of Prince Guicciardini Strozzi.