11/01/2014 Saturday Sportsday

Mel Hello. Welcome to the BBC Sport Centre. Plenty coming up for you

over the next 15 minutes including the latest sports news and features.

This is Saturday Sportsday. It is going to be another busy

weekend. Two football matches are already under way. Chelsea are Hull

and Sheffield Wednesday are playing Leeds in the championship. I will

update you on those scores. The Australian Open starts on Monday and

I will hear from Andy Murray in just a moment as he talks about his back

surgery and his hopes in Melbourne. There has been nothing but Olympic

heartache for Shanaze Reade, so to prepare for Rio 2016, she is making

a completely clean break and heading to America. She will tell us her

story. With Olympic gold medallist Jessica Ennis-Hill announcing she is

pregnant, we will ask Paula Radcliffe about juggling motherhood

and an athletics career. England's cricketers are back in action

tonight. The one-day series starts against Australia but the fallout

from the Ashes whitewash continues. Alastair Cook has said he cannot

give Kevin Pietersen any guarantees about his international future. When

asked if he wanted Kevin Pietersen to help his side regain the Ashes in

2015, Alastair Cook would not be drawn. Kevin Pietersen had taken to

social media to express his strong desire to be part of the England

setup. A mixed day for England's women

cricketers in third. They bowled Australia out for 207 overnight,

leaving Australia with a lead of just six runs but it has been a

terrible start to the second innings.

England are 18 43. Ulster remain unbeaten in the Heineken Cup after

winning over Montpellier last night. They missed out on a bonus point

that would have seen them qualifying for the last eight. There is a full

programme of fixtures in the competition to date with details on

the BBC Sport website. In tennis, Andy Murray has always done well but

never in Australia. He is playing someone ranked outside

the top 100 but his path to the final could see him getting past

Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, and he has had precious little match

practice following back surgery in September. What can we expect from

the fourth seed this time round? We report from Melbourne.

Andy Murray has suffered a lot of misfortune in Melbourne. Three times

finalist, never a winner. I can cry like Roger and it is just a shame I

cannot play like him. Banishing memories of past failures is never

easy and it is difficult to what history repeat itself every year.

Another net call in Australia leads to celebrations on the other side of

the net. What more can Andy Murray do? I like the conditions, I like

the people, the stadium is great. They take really good care of the

players and it is a really well-run tournament so I always enjoy coming

back. One day I can win here. There is an argument to say that Andy

Murray's secret to winning was being a loser first. All those grand slam

final defeats, including three in Melbourne, helped him learn how to

win the big matches, but also win over the British public. The 2013

BBC Sports Personality Of The Year is Andy Murray. It is going to be

difficult for 2014 to live up to the highs of last year. The waiting is

over! The Wimbledon champion is playing down his chances of reaching

another final in Australia after only returning to action two weeks

ago following back surgery. I am not looking at that this year right now.

My back feels much, much better. It is the rest of the body that hurts a

little bit from not playing matches. That is a positive for me. That is

going to calm expectations. Expectations can change during an

event. Expectations can certainly change. He said he would not come to

Australia if he did not think he had a chance of winning so don't rule

out anything just yet. Britain's Heather Watson will join

Laura Robson in the main draw after coming through qualifying today.

Both play on Monday. Now to Jessica Ennis-Hill's terrific

news that she is expecting her first child. She will miss the

Commonwealth Games this summer but the World Championship games next

year or her next target with the Rio Olympics in 2016 coming afterwards,

to defend her gold medal in the heptathlon in London. How difficult

will it be to come back and compete at the very highest level again?

Paula Radcliffe did it and I spoke to her earlier. You plan to have

children because it is something that you want in your life. It is a

longer period of time away from sport than it would be from a

standard career, but coming back afterwards, I did not find it a

problem. Your body remembers it. You are ready to attack the training and

you are happy in your life so you can perform better as well. UK back

into performing and training very quickly after your first. Yes and

obviously she have to give time for her body to recover, as we all do. I

probably rushed into it a bit too quickly. I took it more gradually

the second time. You have a tough nine months with the pregnancy and

then the birth process so you have to give yourself time to recover.

Jessica has shown that she is determined and I have no doubts that

she can come back stronger than ever. Is it a question of training

through pregnancy and taking things easily afterwards? Depends on the

pregnancy. From the moment you no you are pregnant, the baby comes

first. I was lucky in my pregnancy. I was able to keep running during my

second pregnancy and for the first eight months of the first one but

you do have to listen to your body. If you can't, it will not do you any

harm. One of the American athletes could not run for six months of her

pregnancy and she came back strongly, too. You are in Edinburgh

for the cross-country event. It should be a terrific day of

cross-country running. It is an event that is celebrating its 25th

anniversary this year. It has always been synonymous with kicking off the

cross-country year to a good start. And having special performances for

people to build on all year. There are some excellent athletes in

there. Bekele will be there. This event has always been synonymous

with cross-country running and kicking of the year to a good start.

It used to be just after Christmas and now it is in the New Year and it

gives you a chance to test where you are at and where you need to build

up to, whether it is for the rest of the season or for spring marathon,

which Bekele has announced he will do. Then it is the springboard into

the summer, the Commonwealth Games and the European Championships. You

can see more of Paula Radcliffe and the rest of the BBC sports team in

Edinburgh in 1:15pm. For Jessica Ennis-Hill, 2012 was a

professional success but for Shanaze Reade it was a massive

disappointment. She finished six in the BMX final just four years after

missing out in 2008. Shanaze Reade has now moved to America and is

competing in Nevada this weekend. It is a mental scar. You never get rid

of it and it is always there. The Olympic Games has made me feel in

such a negative way about myself. For some people, to make the final

is a brilliant achievement but for me it was not a phenomenal success.

You felt ashamed. And people in your home town, everyone was backing me,

and for a long time I was worried about going into the town centre. It

is stupid but I felt like a disgrace. Going through the pressure

and anxiety is not one for anybody. I am a bubbly person, and going, and

I am like the tortoise. I can go back into my shell and be completely

different. After Beijing I did not come out of my room for weeks on

end. I lost loads of weight and then after London I never really spoke

about it. I just cracked on as if it did not happen and now it is

catching up with me. It was the whole of the Olympics. Sometimes you

don't know who you are and what drove you to be so successful. It is

the sort of thing that athletes are always afraid to talk about,

depression. I will be the first to say that I have had helped and

things can get tough. It is all for the love of the sport and that is

what you do. I don't mind putting myself through that stress if it

will pay off in 2016 at the Olympic Games. Everything I am doing is for

those Games. You know sometimes you have a new lease of life and things

are looking really good and there is excitement about going out there and

bringing my dogs out there and waking up and opening my curtains

and the sun shining and going to the tracks. I always wanted to go to

America because the top girls race out there week in and week out. I

had not had that bars for a while. Being able to go that race BMX, the

thing I loved doing, week in and week out, I can't wait to attack it

with everything I have got. I can't wait to sit down at the end of the

year when it has all gone well. I am really excited to do that. We

wish her well. The Winter Olympics are fast approaching with Great

Britain tipped to have their best winter Games next month in Sochi.

There are great hopes in the skeleton with more than one medal

chance. Lizzy Yarnold claimed silver in San Moritz today, meaning she has

finished on the podium in all six races this season, leaving her on

course to get the overall title. Shelley Rudman got bronze.

Tin-Tin Ho was given a table tennis that when she was just five years

old and she hopes to be in the GB team in Rio 2016. She is 15 and she

has won three British junior titles. Ollie Williams went to meet her and

her ping-pong loving family. I started properly when I was five.

When I was three I used to stand on a chat. I used to play for fun and I

did not think much about it. Great Britain is not known for table

tennis players but this is a big year for a girl who wants to change

that. The name Tin-Tin Ho does not come from comic books but from her

dad's obsession with table tennis. I am her father and my name is

Charles. I love table tennis. This is quite embarrassing! My father is

obsessed with Tin-Tin. I took the initials from the words table

tennis. And that is by my brother is called Ping as well. It gets

interesting when you play Ping Pond. I avoided being called Pong!

She will have to qualify and play the top players before she can even

get into the Olympic Games, and that is a big hurdle. You never know. The

team will be named by May and Tin-Tin has two years to find her

way to the Rio Games. From Tin-Tin and Ping to Kong, the

Bullet, Chuck and Double Dekker. It has to be the darts, semi finals day

at the World Championships. Colin is at the Lakeside.

A breathless set of quarterfinals. We know this semifinal line-up for

the 2014 World Cup championship. The man to beat is still Stephen. Robbie

Green is big and bullish as well and you don't want to miss that one from

2:45pm on BBC One. After that, Jan Dekker against Alan Norris, which

not many people predicted. I predict that it will be very close.

Just time to bring you up to date with the early kick-offs in the

football. Hull against Chelsea, goalless at the KC Stadium with

Fernando Torres making his 200th Premier League appearance. Sheffield

Wednesday leading 1-0 at half-time at Hillsborough. All of us here,

have a great weekend, whichever sport you are watching. -- from all

of us here.