Hi Everyone!

I cannot believe Wimbledon is upon us again. I love this time of year and I have some great memories of past experiences such Arvind Parmar qualifying and beating the 16th seed Albert Costa in the first round, Andy Richardson reaching the third round, losing to Greg Rusedski on Court One, Barry Cowan’s epic five-setter against Sampras, Miles McClagan’s two match points against Boris Becker in another five-set marathon and Martin Lee’s Centre Court appearance against Tim Henman. There have been other players that I have coached who provided moments that added colour and experience to my career and for these experiences I am grateful; players such as Amy van Buuren, Gabi Coorengel, Gary Henderson, Jamie Delgado and the long-serving pro Chris Haggard.

This year heralds the start of a new era in players with the MCTA. Already Anna Fitzpatrick has made a small mark by reaching the second round of the qualifying and the last round of the doubles qualifying tournament. She will also play the Junior event and hopefully Ilija Vucic will qualify as well, giving us representation for both sexes. Ilija had an excellent few days practising with Thomas Johansson in Nottingham, amongst other pros, and he begins the Roehampton warm-up event this week

Wimbledon 2007

Men

My prediction that Nadal would beat Federer in the final of the French set up an excellent prospect of what would happen if they played a Wimbledon final. The biggest obstacle to this event taking palace is whether Nadal can make it to the final. There are still many players that he will be very vulnerable against and guys like Roddick, Hewitt, Karlovic, Tursunov, Gasquet, Berdych, Murray (if he plays) and Djokovic will all fancy their chances as will a dozen other big servers who on the day can easily build up a head of steam and make life very difficult for Nadal. Having said all that Nadal is hungry and an awesome competitor who clearly wants this title and if he makes the final he will be more difficult to beat than last year. On the other hand Roger could steamroller the lot and wrap up a fifth title with little more than a couple of sticky moments but I think he is long overdue a tough five-set thriller, the last of which I believe was against Pete Sampras way back in 2000. The player best placed to push him that far is definitely Nadal which would make for a great final.

Women 

The Women’s will be another Henin milestone in my opinion. She continues to improve and evolve as a player and so much credit should go to Carlos Rodriguez her coach since she was 14. He continually challenges her to push the boundaries of her power and certainly her ability to go to the net and her net play is giving her an added dimension. Sharapova needs to add this ability to finish more points at the net if she is going to evolve to a higher level of play and win more Slams. Serena and Mauresmo are the other main contenders and love the grass but somehow I think this will be Henin’s year. Ivanovic and Jankovic are maturing as players but it is possibly still a year too early as they both struggle to overcome their nerves in the semis or finals of Grand Slams. They are young and will surely work it out as they mature with each experience.

We are looking forward to another fabulous two weeks of tennis and hopefully the weather will be as bright as I believe the tennis will be.

All the best

David 

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