Maria Sharapova reached a career milestone on Friday, which came as a nice surprise after a tough match.

"Oh, wow. I've won 600 matches?" Sharapova said, when an on-court interviewer congratulated her for the achievement earned by winning her third-round match Friday at the Australian Open.The No. 5-seeded player then thought a moment, and laughed nervously.

Kei Nishikori came to the Australian Open this year hoping to put his injury-ravaged 2015 season behind him.

Just five matches into the season, though, spectators at Margaret Court Arena cringed at a familiar sight on Friday: Nishikori plopped down in his chair during a changeover, grabbed his heavily taped right wrist and called for the trainer.

As images and reports of starvation in besieged Syrian communities drew an international outcry and two rare aid convoys this month, an urgent question arose: Why not drop food and other needed supplies by air?

Humanitarian access is a key issue as the United Nations tries to get Syrian parties to peace talks tentatively set for Monday. And it's the focus of a pledging conference on Feb. 4 in London, with the leaders of countries including Germany and Iran expected to attend.

An Italian ecumenical mission is in Lebanon this week to work out the final details of a pilot project to bring up to 1,000 refugees to Italy on humanitarian visas so they're not tempted to risk deadly sea crossings to get to Europe.

The U.N. refugee agency has welcomed the initiative, one of many types of private sponsorships that are enabling particularly vulnerable or needy refugees to reach safety and start new lives in third countries.

Dozens of makers of medicines and diagnostic tests have joined together in an unprecedented effort to tackle "superbugs" — infections that increasingly don't respond to drugs and threaten millions of people in countries rich and poor.

Altogether, 74 drugmakers, 11 makers of diagnostic tests and nine industry groups have signed a groundbreaking agreement to work with governments and each other to prevent and improve treatment of drug-resistant infections. They plan to announce the new agreement Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Israel's military has conducted a drill to prepare for simultaneous combat along its northern frontier with Syria and Lebanon.

It said Wednesday the two-week exercise that combined air, ground and naval forces was aimed at "preparing troops for a long-term multi-front conflict."

Syrian peace talks due next week are looking increasingly moot as a string of recent battlefield victories by government troops have bolstered President Bashar Assad's hand and plunged the rebels into disarray.

The government's advances add to the obstacles that have scuttled chances of halting — at least anytime soon — the five-year civil war that has killed a quarter of a million people, displaced half the country and enabled the radical Islamic State group to seize a third of Syria's territory.

Novak Djokovic opened his Australian Open title defense with a straight-sets win, before going to the defense of his sport as reports of match-fixing overshadowed the first day of the season-opening Grand Slam.

Djokovic had a 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 win over Chung Hyeon of South Korea at Rod Laver Arena on Monday, immediately after women's defending champion and No. 1-ranked Serena Williams started her bid for a seventh Australian title with a 6-4, 7-5 win over No. 34-ranked Camila Giorgi.

Katie Ledecky was barely in the pool when American swim great Michael Phelps was asked about the precocious teenager who seems to mow down world records at will.

"It's always something special when she gets in the water," Phelps said with an eye toward the timing board.

San Antonio stretched its franchise-record unbeaten streak this season to 24-0 by routing Texan rival Dallas 112-83 on Sunday.

The result opened a 13-game gap between the top and second teams in the NBA's Southwest Division, and meant the Spurs were now only 1-1/2 games behind Golden State for the Western Conference and overall league lead.