Rottweilers of cricket put end to dog days as Roger Federer strives to collar Rafael Nadal Serena Williams will be one of the biggest threats to Victoria Azarenka's Australian Open crown. The Ashes - Sydney Test January 3-7 Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. Australia has already won the urn, having taken the first three bad-tempered games with all the elan, grace and finesse of a wheelbarrow full of Rottweilers. This dominance is not a bad thing as some sweet-thinking types who say they want "a jolly good contest" would have you think. There was once a time when the Australians couldn't beat an egg and I'm not referring to the 1980s: I'm referring to the ghastly stretch 12 months before November. What remains is to see them lick the dish to a nice shiny 5-0 polish. The Aussies have a chance to sweep the Ashes series in the final two tests, led by skipper Michael Clarke. Here's a tip on how to get cricket-wary friends, partners or children to enjoy it with you: forget explaining the rules and instead get them interested in the cast - the players themselves. The Montagues and Capulets didn't really get on. This lot are no different. Mitchell Johnson, once the Hamlet of Australian cricket, is now its lancing d'Artagnan and Dave Warner is a little rock of ocker. Arrayed against these champions is a dejected lippy lot - chronic time-waster Stuart Broad and a bloke named James Anderson who was clubbed for a world record 28 in one over by the young gentleman whose block Anderson had threatened to knock off a month earlier in Brisbane. Cycling Tour Down Under - Adelaide January 19-26 Mad dogs and Englishmen and Germans, Dutch and French men also go out in the midday sun, it appears, whereupon they whirr around quickly on bicycles and stop hither and thither to have their urine fiercely interrogated. Yes, it's the Tour Down Under, in South Australia, a once unregarded event that has grown of late to become an ideal season-opening preparation for the major tours in the northern hemisphere. But boy, whew, it really is hot in South Australia at that time of year. Road surfaces bubble audibly. The air is parched. It seems cruel that the peloton is thrashed around in all this bristling heat through some of the finest wine-producing country in the nation, yet the riders are not able to stop for one chilly drop. There are other distractions - fans can ride ahead of the competitors along the race route and the tour has a sweet, eccentric tradition whereby the fans select a non-English speaking low-profile rider from the pack and treat him as if he was a real star, daubing his name on the roads and mobbing him on sight. In 2010, the selected rider was a bottle-carrying worthy named Arthur Vichot. The attention clearly did him good. This year, he knocked off the French National Road Race Championships and, in doing so, won the right to wear the tricolour jersey in the Tour de France. The Australian Open - Melbourne January 13-26 Every year, so far as anyone can recall, the on-court temperature during the Australian Open is hotter than a wombat's armpit. Despite this, the tournament is not chiefly renowned for knocking players out from heatstroke. It's chiefly renowned for knocking players out with five-set thrillers that end at 3am or 4am with a top-seeded player lying on the ground behind the baseline with all the life of a police chalk outline. Roger Federer will be there again trying to put the grand slam record so far out of Rafael Nadal's reach that the Spaniard will give up. But Federer's best hope of keeping his 17 grand slam record lies with the rise of Novak Djokovic and his ability to contest slams Nadal would otherwise win easily. Sydney to Hobart Departs December 26 The best visual experience of the Sydney to Hobart, short of being strapped to the bow of Wild Oats XI, is to be gained from a landlubberly berth on South Head where you can watch the race fleet circle past fast and close. You need not know your spinnaker from your spanker to thrill to the sight of thousands of boats sloshing in attendance of the race fleet. Add to that the thud of the TV choppers overhead and you have a day when you are guaranteed to take at least one good photograph. As for the best nautical experience of the Sydney to Hobart, might we refer once more to Wild Oats XI - the only yacht to have won the event's treble (race record, line honours and overall winner) on two occasions and which is racing again this year and has been fitted with a, you know, retractable horizontal foil deployed on the leeward side of the boat.