I’ve just had 3 weeks in the USA which comprised of a week’s training in Newport Beach (California), a Challenger in Redding, California and then Anna Fitzpatrick got a wildcard for the qualifying of the Sony Ericsson in Miami, a good opportunity to show what she could to at Tour level. She lost a decent match to Tamarine Tanasugarn a seasoned campaigner, creating enough chances to show she is not off the pace, yet still a little erratic with her focus at this level, making too many unforced errors at key moments.

Men’s Tour

Indian Wells showed that Djokovic is firmly in the hunt for the No 2 spot by both beating Nadal and winning the tournament. Barry Cowan, who I used to coach and is now a pundit and commentates for Sky Sports had Glandular Fever and I personally had the milder form of mononucleosis and we both were discussing Federer’s illness believing from our experiences that it takes a minimum of three months to feel fully recovered from mono, and up to a year for glandular fever. It is fortunate that he did not develop Glandular Fever or hepatitis which devastated the career of Maria Bueno but we are not convinced he is fully healthy yet. Miami will be a good test, especially if it heats up with a good dose of humidity. Certainly the cards have fallen well for him with Kevin Anderson taking out Djokovic early. Jez and I did a couple of days’ work with Kev in Cincinnati when he came down to hit with Wes. We were impressed with him then at 300-odd in the world. He has progressed exceptionally quickly into the top 100 and will be a dangerous floater on the grass this summer.

Mardy Fish and Mario Ancic are two players on their way back from injury who know how to compete at top 20 level so as Federer put it these guys are not truly 98 and 63 in the world players but players who are dangerous floaters in the draw for all the big boys which he and Andy Murray have experienced. The media rumblings about Andy and his new team are misguided at present because although dropping outside the top 20 next week, on the race for 2008 he is No 6 with nothing to defend until August. I would interpret his start to the year as up and down but his position solid for making a run at top 5. The good thing about Roger losing a few is the belief that he can be beaten has grown so Miami is fairly open, although he will go a good way to re-establish his authority if he cruises through. My gut is he will get beaten again and this will be the year he will have to fight to retain the No 1 position which is good for the sport in a different way to admiring world domination.

Women’s Tour

Whenever you have players competing against each other from the same country the dynamics and pressures are totally different. Often there are long histories dating back to junior days and these tensions often arise in matches. Two good examples of this were the Jankovic - Ivanovic and Kuznetsova - Sharapova encounters which were close and nervy. Kuznetsova is slowly improving her consistency of results and is a growing contender to challenge Henin for No1. Miami is the Williams sisters’ home turf and they are prolific here and I think one of them will win it.

MCTA

As I said in the introduction, I was in the USA where results were patchy. Anna and Ana won back-to-back doubles titles but the singles were a touch disappointing. Ilija and Henri have both cracked the top 50 juniors in the world with good results in Asia and Wes Moodie is focussing on doubles for a couple of months whilst he sorts out his left knee, before making an assault on the grass. For all latest news visit www.mctacademy.com 

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