as the joint-venture desperately try to keep their NRL season alive

BASTAD, Sweden - Serena Williams cruised into the quarterfinals of the Swedish Open by beating Anna Tatishvili of Georgia 6-2, 6-3 on Thursday. The 16-time Grand Slam champion broke four times in the first set and twice in the second at the clay-court tournament. She had seven aces, while her opponent served nine double faults. Williams ousted Tatishvili in the first round of the French Open in May. The top-seeded Williams will face Lourdes Dominguez Lino on Friday. Flavia Pennetta advanced when second-seeded Simona Halep of Romania retired with an undisclosed injury. The Italian was leading 4-6, 7-5, 2-0 at the time. Also in the second round, Richel Hogenkamp beat Lesia Tsurenko 6-1, 2-6, 6-3. Vans Sk8 Hi Reissue . 10 VCU 85-67 on Thursday night at the Puerto Rico Tip-Off. The Seminoles (4-0) have scored at least 80 points in each of their games. Cheap Vans Sk8 Hi Shoes .R. Smith realized how easily basketball can be taken from him, and he wasnt going to take his place in the NBA for granted anymore. http://www.vansshoesclearancesale.com/vans-sk8-hi-clearance.html Vans Old Skool White Sale . Takahashi, who had a 10-point lead after the short program, received 268.31 points after the free skate to finish 15 points ahead of second-place Nobunari Oda. Vans Shoes Sale . In Europe, top teams seem to be largely happy with their squads after spending nearly $1 billion in the off-season. And although English league clubs are unlikely to splash cash in January, Arsenal and Chelsea could be tempted to strengthen their squads with new strikers. St George Illawarra are scratching around for confidence, Benji Marshall admits, as the joint-venture desperately try to keep their NRL season alive.The Dragons have won just three of their last eight fixtures and slumped to their third successive loss to Wests Tigers on Sunday.The joint venture remain in finals contention, sitting two points outside the top eight with six rounds remaining.But star playmaker Marshall, who has struggled with a hamstring injury for much of the year, knows they have to turn things around quickly.We have definitely made it tough for ourselves and probably got a lot of people on our backs because of it, Marshall said.But we need to stick together as a team and find out what is going to turn it around.We just need that one moment to click our confidence into gear. Because I will be honest with you we are lacking confidence in a lot of areas of the game.Whether that is due to outside noise or outside pressure or (being) scared to make a mistake or the pressure of where we are on the table, we just need something to go our way, something to turn the season around and that is going to be hard work.ddddddddddddMarshall said his side were letting themselves down in key moments.We need to be better, we need to be tougher in those moments when the game is in the balance. We are not toughening those moments out, he said.The Wests Tigers premiership winner admitted he was struggling to overcome his injury troubles.It is very frustrating because it is hard to get consistency and timing, he said.For me it has been a bit of a step forward and then a step back and then starting again and trying to get through games not worrying about injury.You might think you are not worrying about it but it is the back of your head there. ' ' '