Australian Open champions Roger Federer and Serena Williams maintained their No 1 rankings when new rankings were released on Monday. Federer,who beat Britain's Andy Murray in the Australian Open men's final in straight sets on Sunday,will begin his 268th week as the ATP's No 1 and match Jimmy Connors,currently in third place,for total number of weeks as world No 1. Pete Sampras leads the career list with 286 weeks at No 1,followed by Ivan Lendl with 270. The ATP said Novak Djokovic takes over as No 2,Murray is third and injured Rafael Nadal drops to No 4. It marks the first time that Nadal has dropped out of the world's top three since his debut there in June 2005. Nadal has been cleared of a recurrence of the knee tendinitis that sidelined him for nine weeks last year. A small muscle tear sustained at the Australian Open,where he lost in the quarterfinals to Murray,will keep him out for the next month. "It is not important for me,the ranking issue and losing a few spots - that's normal when you are not able to compete," Nadal said. There was movement on the women's side,with Li Na becoming the first Chinese player ever to enter the top 10 when she reached a career-high No 10 following her semifinal run here. Justine Henin,who was unranked and playing on a wild-card entry at her first major in two years,still needs to play another tournament before she gets an official ranking. Williams,who beat Henin in Saturday's Australian Open final,has extended her current stretch at No 1 to 15 weeks. Official rankings released today by the WTA show Williams begins her 88th career week as the top-ranked player. Dinara Safina was No 2,followed by US Open finalist Caroline Wozniacki at a career-high No 3,French Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova at No 4 and Australian Open quarterfinalist Venus Williams at No 5. Victoria Azarenka,who lost to Serena Williams in the quarterfinals,was No 6,followed by Elena Dementieva at 7. It's the first time that Olympic gold medalist Dementieva,who lost to Henin in the second round here,has dropped out of the top 5 since September,2008. Jelena Jankovic was No 8,Agnieszka Radwanska 9 and Li at 10. Li said after her quarterfinal win over Venus Williams that her goal was the top 10,but she may have to revise her expectations higher. "So exciting,maybe I will have a beer tonight," said Li,who lost in the semifinals to Serena Williams. "My goal this year was top 10,but it's only January,and it's come quickly." Clijsters returned to the rankings at No 19 ahead of the fourth and last event of her comeback season at Luxembourg,where she was ousted in the second round.
