SPRING TRAINING

The last two months have been the season of our lack of content.

Tennis lay dormant.

Now, the game begins in full 40 C heat in the middle of the Australian summer.

There will be injuries.

There will be heat exhaustion.

There will be the Australian Open starting 14 January.

The three ‘warm-up’ tournies beforehand:

Doha,

Chennai, India,

Adelaide, Oz.

Most of the top ranked men will skip these and play in the Kooyong exhibition.

Roger will skip Doha for the second year in a row and start in Kooyong.

Last year, Roddick beat Roger here starting the tongues wagging.

In the ‘real’ tournament, THE OZ,

Roger thrashed Roddick [4, 0, 2 ].

LET THE GAMES BEGIN!!

NEW PLEXICUSHION COURTS

In the wake of an annual spate of injuries and claims that the courts were too slow, Tennis
Australia has installed new Plexicushion courts.

TA officials say they'll be faster than Wimbledon.

Some players disagree.

– Lleyton Hewitt: "I think the biggest thing is all the courts are going to be a lot more consistent, especially compared with Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne... I've practised on Rod Laver Arena a couple of times, I practised one day with the roof open and the next day with the roof closed, and it played exactly the same. I think that's a good sign."

– Mardy Fish: I am not a huge fan of it, to be honest. It's a little slow for me. It plays extremely slow."

– Novak Djokovic: "After a couple of days it can get faster. For now, it's pretty slow."

– Joseph Sirianni (Tennis Australia wildcard playoff winner): "They're slow at the moment. will speed up once players come in from overseas and practise on them... The balls are fluffing up a lot at the moment. I mean the court surface, because it's a new court, it's a bit rough. It's like sandpaper."

– Jelena Jankovic: "I thought it was going to be faster, it seems to be a lot slower. Here [at Hopman Cup] it's indoors, I don't know how it will play outside."

– Alicia Molik: "On Rebound Ace, you get a differing bounce in hot conditions as opposed to cold ones... Plexicushion is a more even surface."

– Maria Sharapova: "Especially in extreme heat, the [old Rebound Ace] court gets very sticky and a lot of injuries can occur. So I'm very excited about it and it will be good to have a good week of practice before to get used to it." – Craig Tiley (Australian Open tournament director): "You will never get 100% of players saying any court is great. Some players like clay, some like grass, some like hardcourts. But I can tell you in my 20-plus years of experience in courts, I've never received such a positive feedback from change."

LLEYTON HEWITT

Lleyton Hewitt says you won't notice his improvement. But he is adamant his opponents will.

Hewitt enters the new year with the same old goals but a fresh mindset from working with his new mentor, Tony Roche.

He still covets the Australian Open trophy above all and winning other grand slams. And the 26-year-old reckons "little areas" of tactical improvement will help him achieve those goals.

"Hopefully, not being probably as predictable as in the past, adding a little bit more of variety," Hewitt explained in Adelaide yesterday. "Small tactical things that a lot of people won't pick up, but your opponents will.

EVONNE GOOLAGONG

Evonne Goolagong has a new addition to her trophy case, more than 30 years late.

Goolagong has been told by WTA Tour officials that she should have been ranked No. 1 for a two-week period in 1976 in the middle of winning six tournaments, including the Australian Open and the season-ending Virginia Slims Championship.

OFF SEASON ACTIVITIES

BOB BRYAN
“We have a series of exhibitions planned. We’ll be traveling all over the country. Hopefully we’ll sneak in some days at home. We’ll go to Hawaii for a week right before the Australian Open. That will be our vacation. We’ll train, probably plan an exhibition, and we’ll take seven days of snorkeling, relaxing.”

MIKE BRYAN
“We’ll play a lot of games. Our new one we’ve been playing almost every day is Scrabble. We have it on our computers, wireless on our computers. We’re mastering the two-letter words and all the small ones. That’s the key.”

ANDY RODDICK
“It’s going to be a short off-season. I’ll play some exhibitions, just to stay sharp. And I try to get up to a University of Nebraska football game every year, so I’ll try to make time for that. [Indianapolis Colts head coach] Tony Dungy gave me his book. And I haven’t read James [Blake’s] yet. I might do that.”

GAEL MONFILS
“Spend more time with my girlfriend. For sure, I’m going to Guadalupe and Martinique. They’re my origin and my parents are from there.”

ARVANE REZAI
“I go to Iran to see my family and to practice a lot and to prepare for the Australian Open. I am born in France but my blood is Iranian because my both parents are from there. I think my culture actually is more Iranian than French.”

JELENA JANKOVIC
“I will have my books with me. It’s so many kilos. I have extra luggage always to pay for. Now I’m in the third year [at a Serbian university] and I have many exams to do.”

NICOLE VAIDISOVA
“I’ll start my off season with a nice holiday in one of the Caribbean islands. After that it’s off to South America for media tour to promote Reebok and tennis. While I’m there I’ll play an exhibition in Santiago [Chile] as well. I’ll also probably play in a few charity events throughout December. Besides that I’ll be training hard [with Stepanek?] in Bradenton, trying to get ready for the 2008 season.”

MARTINA HINGIS vs ANNA KOURNIKOVA

After the older and more advanced Martina Hingis embarrassed Anna Kournikova 6-0, 6-0 at the 1994 Junior U.S. Open, the acid-tongued Russian reportedly told her: “You won, but I’m prettier and more marketable than you.” But Hingis returned serve when in 1998 she crowed, “I’m sure she would like to change places with me, if she could, and have four Grand Slam titles.”

In November 2000 the two staged a raucous locker room fight (they reportedly threw trophies and bouquets at each other) at an exhibition in Santiago, Chile, that caused Hingis to dump her as a doubles partner. “Martina asked if I thought I was the queen—because the real queen was her,” Kournikova told the media. Later, in the clubhouse, Kournikova threw a crystal vase at Hingis that smashed on the floor. “It was so bad I thought they were going to beat each other,” former pro Jaime Fillol told the New York Post.

The talented twosome happily settled their differences and reunited as a doubles team in 2001 and captured their second Grand Slam crown together at the 2002 Australian Open.

MCENROE vs CONNORS

It was hate at first sight when Connors, who had reigned with Bjorn Borg for most of the 1970s, confronted McEnroe, an equally fiery Irish-American. Proud and pugnacious Connors resented the outrageously talented punk who would take attention, money and titles from him. Mac resented the lack of respect he received from Connors. In the 1979 Grand Prix Masters, Connors dismissively predicted, “Remember he’s still a young boy. McEnroe will be good practice for me,” before McEnroe upset him, 7-5, 3-0, retired, to signal the changing of the guard. “That f***face McEnroe” was how Connors described his archrival. The younger (by six years) McEnroe came out on top, 20-13, in their often-controversial head-to-head, although Connors led 8-7 in Grand Slam singles titles. Their verbal volleys were even, though, and always entertaining.

When McEnroe hectored officials during their 1980 Wimbledon semifinal, Connors blasted, “My son is better behaved than you. I’ll bring him to play you.” McEnroe confided: “There were times on court when I wanted to beat Connors so bad, I felt I could easily strangle him.” By 1984, an aging Connors had somewhat mellowed, winning over crowds with quips instead of alienating them with vulgarity, while irascible McEnroe was the bad actor that fans loved to hate. “I don’t know that I changed all that much. They just found somebody worse,” was Connors’s memorable zinger. But McEnroe wasn’t buying the nice-guy image Connors cultivated late in his career and fired back: “I don’t think I could ever be that phony.”

STOSUR OUT

Illness has knocked Australia's top-ranked woman out of next month's Australian Open. Samantha Stosur, ranked No. 46, will miss the Melbourne major as she continues her recovery from illness.

The 23-year-old Stosur was hospitalized in Florida in September after being diagnosed with viral meningitis.

She also contracted an unrelated virus in July that forced her withdrawal from the Fed Cup tie between Australia and the Ukraine and ruined her U.S. summer circuit. She resumed training three weeks ago and is not ready to rejoin the Tour.

Stosur will also miss her home tournament, the Australian Women's Hardcourts on the Gold Coast, as well as the Australian Open, which starts on January 14.

JOHN ISNER

John Isner, currently No. 106, just missed the mid-November rankings cutoff for the year's first Grand Slam event. One of the top 100 players, Argentina's Guillermo Canas, already has dropped out with a wrist injury, leaving Isner just two notches from an automatic entry, with fellow American Robert Kendrick just ahead of him.

Isner could bide his time, wait for a couple of other withdrawals and try to slip in without any extra effort. (Jonas Bjorkman of Sweden is another possible scratch, depending on when wife Petra delivers their second child, due in mid-January.) However, Isner's life was complicated when the U.S. Tennis Association asked him and three other young Americans to play off next week for the wild-card berth the organization received in a reciprocal agreement with Tennis

The men will play in a round-robin format. Should two of them tie at 2-1, they'll play an additional match. If Isner wins the playoff but then gets into the main draw by virtue of his ranking, USTA spokesman Tim Curry said Monday that it was unclear which player would get the wild card.

ROBBY GINEPRI

Robby Ginepri's friends on the U.S. Davis Cup team unsuccessfully lobbied the USTA to offer him the wild-card invitation outright. The 24-year-old reached the third round of the Australian to start the 2007 season, but he struggled after that and sank from the top 50 to No. 134.

Ginepri is "currently training very hard in Palm Springs [Calif.] with his coach, Jose Higueras, and is planning to go down to Australia" to play in the qualifying tournament.

CHAKVETADZE ROBBERY

Four people have been arrested in connection to the robbery at Chakvetadze's house
in Moscow.

STEPANEK - VAIDISOVA

Speaking to a Czech newspaper, Stepanek's father denies that Stepanek and Vaidisova are planning to marry but says he and Stepanek are in Florida, where Vaidisova regularly trains. A marriage license for the two players has been issued in a Florida county.

PARADORN SRICHIPHAN

Paradorn Srichaphan made headlines two years ago when he shaved his head, donned a simple robe and left worldly things behind for a week to serve a temporary stint as a Buddhist monk, a traditional interlude for young men in his native Thailand. Srichaphan took a different set of vows Nov. 29, marrying one-time Miss Universe Natalie Glebova, a Canadian, in Bangkok. His on-court luck hasn't been quite as good. The former top-10 player was sidelined for most of 2007 by a wrist injury and underwent surgery in October.

FAST TRACK

Not only are the new blue Australian Open courts faster than the contentious surface they replaced, they have been measured as even quicker than Wimbledon's grass.

That is the remarkable claim of the Australian Open's tournament director, Craig Tiley, who consulted widely with leading players - keeping Australian Lleyton Hewitt "in the loop" - before selecting the Plexicushion surface.

Tiley says it is quicker than Wimbledon grass and only slightly slower than the US Open's hardcourts, the slickest of the grand slam events. Tiley said the new Plexicushion had a speed rating of "34 to 38", which defined it as medium-fast on the International Tennis Federation's pace-rating scale. Surprisingly, this was quicker than Wimbledon - historically, the tournament that favoured serve-and-volley tennis, in which rallies were relatively short.

"Wimbledon is actually slower," said Tiley. "The French is obviously very slow. So we're faster than Wimbledon, faster than the French, and a little bit below the US Open."

While the notion that the Australian Open's courts - in the past much derided by the Hewitt camp for resembling "green clay" - might be quicker than the game's grass slam seems astounding, this does not necessarily make the tournament a serve-and-volleyer's nirvana. As Tiley acknowledged, on grass "the ball keeps low", which tended to give the impression of greater pace. A low bounce and skidding ball made it harder to retrieve volleys.

Tiley said Hewitt, the main critic of the Australian Open's previous surface, Rebound Ace, had indicated he liked Plexicushion.

Tiley said world No.1 Roger Federer also had been "kept in the loop" about the new surface. Federer would be another obvious beneficiary of a quicker surface.

Tiley and Tennis Australia are touting the new courts as quicker, more reliable and consistent than Rebound Ace, which was said to have variations in pace and bounce.

TAYLOR DENT --- ENDANGERED SPECIES

Son of Phil Dent, Taylor Dent is one of the last members of the endangered tennis species - serve-et-volleyus.

His career has been strewn with injuries.

Dent has been hampered by back issues for about as long as he can remember. As the physical nature of the tour began to take its toll, Dent began to receive injections for the pain – occasional, at first, and soon regular.

Then, the tolerable became unbearable. At a tournament in Rotterdam in early 2006, Dent pulled out after feeling a disturbing “twinge” in his back and hobbled home for another injection. This time, the pain didn’t subside. After no fewer than ten fruitless injections, Dent realized the problem had progressed to the next level. He had a fractured vertebrae, and it had to be dealt with.

Dent tried surgery for the first time – “a minor procedure” – in May of 2006. That didn’t help either. He went under the knife for a second time in March of 2007. A compound was inserted in and around the fractured vertebrae to promote bone growth. Unfortunately, the fracture was too large and too far along. The material never took hold.

After months of frustration and pain, Dent and his doctor decided to try once again, this time with a similar, but more involved procedure. The vertebrae were fastened with screws and small bars, and the bone-growth compound was again inserted into that area.

The doctor, based in west Los Angeles, was pleased with the surgery.

Dent wasn’t so sure. For weeks after the September operation, the pain was excruciating. “I’d go walking for an hour, then spend the rest of the day in bed,” he said.

But slowly, the pain began to subside. Routine movements no longer hurt and Dent began to hope against hope.

Dent, who last played a professional match in February of 2006, still holds a protected ranking. He hopes that’ll help accelerate his reemergence on the tour. “You can use it nine times, so you don’t want to waste them. I’ll pick my spots”

He’s even been talking to Wilson about changing racquets “for a little more pop.”

Now he just needs his body to keep co-operating.

RUSSIAN ROULETTE

Russian tennis star Anna Chakvetadze was tied up by masked robbers who broke into her home in Moscow, Tuesday and stole money and goods worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The thieves made off with more than $200,000 in cash.

WHAT!!!!!!!! They had $200,000 dollars in their house?

There seems to be a basic mistrust of the Russian banking system.

The player was bound for 30 minutes in her home outside Moscow but not seriously hurt.

Six assailants approached the home before dawn, tied up a maid in another building and forced her to hand over a remote control enabling them to enter the house through the garage.

Chakvetadze reached a career-high ranking of No. 5 in September, following her first run to a Grand Slam semifinal. She won four singles titles and about $1.4 million in prize money in 2007, her best season since turning pro in 2003.

Money Carlo may soon have a new resident.

100 DECIBELL SHRIEKY

Action against the grunt has been rare. Among the exceptions was the 2003 Wimbledon warm-up event at Birmingham, when Sharapova was warned by officials after her opponent, Nathalie Dechy — and players on an adjacent court — complained about the noise.

At Wimbledon, the London tabloids' famous grunt-o-meter has recorded Sharapova's noise level at 101.2 decibels — the equivalent, apparently, of a police siren at close range or a small aircraft landing nearby.

Former Australian great John Newcombe has previously described it as "cheating".

"It's actually what I consider legalised cheating, because one of your great senses that you have on a tennis court is your ability to hear the ball come off your opponent's strings," Newcombe said last year. The player who can't hear the ball is effectively flying blind.

Sharapova and others, including the ur-grunter, Monica Seles, have always argued that the noises are involuntary.

Under the rules of tennis, the chair umpire must be convinced that they are excessive and intentional. If so, "any continual distraction of regular play, such as grunting, shall be dealt with as follows: for the first offence, a let should be called and the player should be told that any such hindrance thereafter will be ruled deliberate. Any hindrance caused by a player that is ruled deliberate will result in the loss of a point."

Two years ago at Wimbledon, more than a decade after Nathalie Tauziat's sensational complaint against Seles, tournament referee Alan Mills accused quieter players of trying to out-psyche noisy opponents by copying their behaviour.

"Many of the non-grunting players are unhappy about the noise pollution and a kind of counter-grunt culture has emerged in recent years whereby offended parties ape their opponent's noises."

Australian Open referee Wayne McKewen confirmed that a chair umpire would only consider taking action if a complaint was made by an opponent or if it was thought that the grunting was intentional to hinder the other player. In that case, he said, the umpire would speak to the player involved.

STEPANEK AND VAIDISOVA

Bradenton resident Nicole Vaidisova, the 12th-ranked women's tennis player in the world, has filed papers for a marriage license with men's professional tennis player Radek Stepanek, according to information received from the Manatee County Clerk of Circuit Court.

Vaidisova and Stepanek applied for the marriage license Dec. 10, and their names are on a public records list that will appear in Sunday's Herald.

The 18-year-old Vaidisova turned pro in 2003 and is coming off her best year on the WTA Tour. She reached the semifinals at the Australian Open and the quarterfinals of the French Open and Wimbledon.

Stepanek, 29, has two career titles on the ATP Tour, including one earlier this year in Los Angeles. His best Grand Slam showing was a quarterfinal berth at Wimbledon in 2006.

Stepanek was previously engaged to another tennis player, Martina Hingis, but the two broke off their engagement in August. A failed drug test could have prompted the very straight Stepanek to back off.

PHILIPPOUSSIS OUT

Mark Philippoussis' latest comeback attempt is over before it fully began - and his competitive career on the ATP Tour is now in serious jeopardy as well. The 31-year-old Philippoussis announced he will undergo immediate surgery to repair a cartilage tear in his right knee. It will be the fourth knee surgery of Philippoussis' career.

The injury ends Philippoussis' hopes of playing next month's Australian Open.

The two-time Grand Slam finalist had advanced to the quarterfinals of the Australian Open wild card playoff in Melbourne, but was forced to withdraw after sustaining the right knee injury.

Philippoussis suffered the injury almost 11 months to the day after tearing the lateral meniscus in his right knee representing Australian at the Hopman Cup in January. He has not played an ATP Tour-level match this season with his activity confined to his senior circuit debut at the Stanford Championships in October. His latest injury is reportedly more severe than the meniscus tear he suffered last January.

Given his chronic knee injuries, age and the fact that at 226 pounds his bulky upper body puts stress on his fragile knees, it will be difficult for Philippoussis to bounce back from this latest setback.

STOSUR TICKED OFF

The common cattle tick derailed the season of Australia's No1 female player Samantha Stosur.

The 23-year-old has been put through the wringer over the past six months after contracting both viral meningitis and Lyme disease.

Stosur, who reached a career-high WTA ranking of 27 in January this year and spent 61 weeks as the No1 doubles player, started to feel unwell around Wimbledon in late June.

"I was flying from New York to Tampa and that's when I started to get a headache.
I put up with it all night and then by six o'clock the next morning I couldn't handle it any more and I called friends and they took me to hospital.

"They worked out within 24 hours it was viral meningitis, but it took another four weeks to find out there was another underlying factor why this was happening."

Viral meningitis causes the lining around the brain and top of the spine to swell, which delivers splitting headaches. Lyme disease, carried by ticks, is a bacteria that produces flu-like symptoms such as drowsiness, joint and muscle pain, mild fever and headaches.

Antibiotics have cleared the Lyme disease and she is back in full practise sessions and cross-training.

"The doctors say as long as I'm careful not to push myself too hard and do a controlled rehab program the physios have set out for me, I should be fine with no long-term effects," Stosur said.

"I've got to monitor how I feel each day and if I sense anything coming on, go straight back to the doctor."

But with no singles matches in four months, Stosur has slipped to No47 in the world.

SCUD SKIDS

Court seven at Melbourne Park is only a short walk from Rod Laver Arena.

But for Mark Philippoussis, it's a thousand miles away.

The 31-year-old Scud yesterday was dispatched by 20-year-old Sam Groth, 6-4, 6-3, in a qualifying match for next month's Australian Open.

Strictly speaking, Philippoussis is still alive in the qualifying event. But on the basis of his display yesterday, the telltale bandage below the knee, and his limited movement on the court, the Scud seems unlikely to make it past this land of promising juniors, hopefuls and journeymen.

Again, he will have to rely on the kindness of Australian Open organisers, who have been generous with wildcards in the past.

But having received his share of freebie spots into the grand slam draw, the shot callers are under more pressure this year to do what no nightclub would dare, and refuse Mark Philippoussis entry.

BLUE PLEXICUSHION COURTS

And among those checking out the speed of the new-look blue Melbourne Park courts this week is the man known as one of the fastest servers around, Mark Philippoussis.

The 31-year-old, who earned his nickname "Scud" because of his missile-like serves, arrived back from the US and will practise at Melbourne Park this week.

Philippoussis has not played on the ATP Tour since he tore ligaments in his right knee during last January's Hopman Cup. He returned to competition in the over-30s circuit in the US last month but will be given a protected ranking of 122 when he enters his next pro tournament.

He has been training with Andre Agassi's fitness coach Gil Reyes in Nevada and will now work with Davis Cup coach Darren Cahill.

Philippoussis will notice the difference at Melbourne Park since his last visit at the 2006 Australian Open, with all but five of the 31 courts covered in the new two-tone blue surface.

It is the biggest change in the Australian Open since the event moved from the Kooyong grass to Rebound Ace in 1988.

GOLF IS JUST ANOTHER FORM OF TENNIS

GREG AND LAURA HAPPILY WATCHING TENNIS

Australian golf great Greg Norman has agreed to carve up his $300 million fortune, with a third going to his estranged wife Laura to end their 25-year marriage.

Despite a bitter and public divorce battle, both Norman and Laura were wearing happy faces.

The vast business empire the couple amassed during their marriage has been carved up under the divorce deal.

The agreement divvies up the $US20 million family mansion in Florida's exclusive Jupiter Island estate, the Norman's Estates Wine company, the popular Greg Norman sportswear line and Great White Shark Enterprises, with its golf course design division, the paper said.

The one unresolved issue relates the tax debt on the seven private jets Norman owned during the marriage.

When the couple first announced plans for a divorce a year ago it seemed amicable, but became heated after photos of Norman and 52-year-old Evert holding hands in Sydney were published.

Norman and his former flight attendant wife then fought a public battle that intensified in recent months.

Norman drew worldwide headlines when a petition his lawyers filed attacked the impact his wife had on his golf career, which included two British Open and 20 PGA victories.

"The wife did not teach the husband to swing a golf club," the petition from Norman's lawyers stated.

"The wife did not teach the husband to win.

"All of those teachings were the product of diligent hard work by the husband prior to this marriage."

Norman also argued his contribution to raising the couple's two children, Morgan-Leigh, 24, and Gregory, 20, "were extraordinary and far exceeded the contributions of the wife".

CHRIS EVERT - GREG NORMAN

Former tennis champion Chris Evert and ex-golf number one Greg Norman announced their engagement on Friday, during the South African Open golf tournament in the South-Western Cape.

Evert and Norman have both divorced their spouses in the last year -- Australian Norman agreeing a reported $100-million settlement with Laura in September and Evert splitting from Andy Mill, her second husband, last December.

Evert, the winner of 18 grand slam singles titles, confirmed the engagement at a news conference to announce she would be building a tennis centre at the Pearl Valley Golf Estates, where the South African Open golf is being held.

THE AGONY THAT IS MARIA

The problem she has is that she's lean, leggy, blond and pretty. Sponsors stand in line to dump bucketsful of dough over Sharapova.

No wonder so many people can't stand her!

All right, there are legitimate reasons for being lukewarm toward her.

There's that unethical coaching-from-the-player-guest-box thing.

There's that incident when she coldly turned her back on badly injured Tatiana Golovin at the Sony Ericsson tournament last March.

Her strokes are mechanical and her movement awkward.

Sharapova can be snappish, and seems prone to moments of diva-vinity (expecting people to jump through hoops for you and mixed with a sense that you're god's gift …).

Her mental fragility makes one cringe. Matches between Mauresmo and Sharapova are worthy of a P.H.D. thesis in abnormal psychology.

And that Monica Seles-grade shriek that she cuts loose with after every stroke (drop shot: heeeeee-yah!).

And here's something else.

Yuri Sharapov, Shrieky's father, is the most toxic tennis dad out there.

Dude glows.

Point a camera toward Yuri and he will find a new way to make a horse's ass out of himself.

Yet his daughter continues to stand by him. You had to have had a heart of stone not to be moved by the touching, pathetic way Shrieky thanked him in her victory speech at the U.S. Open.

Seem crazy to you? A little twisted?

I can hear Annie Lennox warbling in the background,

” Sweet dreams are made of these.”

Whom am I to disagree?

AUS HAWKEYE

Players will have more chances to challenge line-calls using video replays at January's Australian Open, a move organizers hope will help tennis create a more consistent policy regarding Hawk-Eye technology.

The 2008 Australian Open will adopt a "three-plus-one challenge system" for Hawk-Eye.

That means players get three incorrect challenges during a set and a fourth challenge if it goes into a tiebreaker.

This year's tournament had a two-plus-one system.

Australian Open organizers will extend the use of Hawk-Eye to Vodafone Arena for next year's tournament, in addition to the main Rod Laver Arena.

Video replays are a quick way of resolving a dispute over a line call and takes pressure off a chair umpire, as well as adding more drama to the match.

CANAS OUT OF OZ

A wrist injury has taken Guillermo Canas out of the Australian Open removing one of Roger Federer's potential toughest obstacles in his defense of the Oz Open title.

Cañas, who scored successive victories over the Swiss stylist at Indian Wells and Miami in March, has officially withdrawn from next month's Australian Open due to tendonitis in his left wrist.

The 15th-ranked Argentine is expected to be sidelined until next April. A premature return could leave Cañas vulnerable to aggravating the injury and possibly prompt surgery. A French doctor who examined Cañas' ailing wrist advised against surgery and recommended rest.

Cañas was one of only four men to beat Federer in 2007. Federer gained a measure of revenge in October crushing Cañas, 6-0, 6-3, to cruise into the Madrid Masters quarterfinals in 53 minutes.

The injury stalls an inspired return to the pro circuit for Cañas. Left wrist surgery sidelined him for several months in 2000, followed by the surgery to remove a cyst and repair a stress fracture on his right wrist on Aug. 9, 2002, which preceded another procedure on his wrist on March 14, 2003 that sidelined him for nearly eight months.

Cañas was hit with the two-year suspension from professional tennis, fined $276,070 in prize money and forced to forfeit 525 singles and 95 doubles ranking points after testing positive for the banned diuretic hydrochlorothiazide at the Acapulco event in February 2005. Cañas served a suspension from June 2005 to September 2006 before returning to tournament tennis late last year.

KING JOHN, THE MAD

It is almost half past eight on a wet Friday evening when he enters the court for the Legends Cup, but already the demons are swarming like wasps.

He thought they were playing in Brussels – they drove him to Liege!

He thought they’d be staying at a nice hotel beside the tournament venue – they drove him halfway to Luxembourg!

He’s jet-lagged; his back aches; he’s picked up an anger-rash from the press conference and just when he thought his head was going to explode, just when he thought things couldn’t get much worse, they’ve sent him out to play the lovable Frenchman, Henri Leconte.

Henri, Le Doux.

Leconte with the sweet disposition.

Leconte with the permanent smile.

Leconte charming the umpire and throwing water and cola to the crowd. Leconte.

Within four games of the opening set, Mac has had his fill . . .

“FFFUUCCCKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!”

In the fifth, he savages the umpire.

In the sixth, he flings his racket to the ground. He loses the set, fights his way back and then loses the match in a tie-break. Boy, is he pissed off.

One watches, waits for the storm to abate.

There’s no handshake. They exchange heated abuse at the net and Mac storms from the court without granting an interview or an autograph.

King John, the triple Wimbledon singles champion.

King John, one of the finest we’ve ever seen.

King John, the outstanding broadcaster.

King John, The Mad.

AUS HEAT RULES

Australian Open officials have amended the tournament's heat policy so that matches in progress when extreme conditions are declared won't have to be immediately finished.

Players in the Jan. 14-27 tournament at Melbourne Park will no longer have to complete matches that are already under way once the extreme heat rule is invoked, instead only having to complete the current set.

Previously, players who had just started a match had to complete it, even if it meant sweltering through a full three or five sets in extreme conditions.

In another change announced Saturday, the decision to suspend play will be solely at the discretion of the tournament referee. Previously, Open organizers used a specific cutoff point, based on calculations of a set of weather readings that included court temperature and humidity.

"Previously if we invoked the heat policy the matches continued until the conclusion of a match," Tiley said. "Some players were out here in very extreme conditions for another three to four hours.

"Now we're saying at the end of a set the matches will come in, so we're not going to create that situation where players have to battle it out with a lack of performance because of the heat for a long time."

As in the past, play will be able to continue on the two courts with retractable roofs, Rod Laver Arena and Vodafone Arena.

Tiley said the newly installed Plexicushion courts, which replaced the old Rebound Ace surface, would also help player comfort. He said the new courts had a thinner layer of rubberized cushioning, which meant they would retain less heat.

HEWITT'S HOUSE

Desperate to make next month's Australian Open title his — after years of whingeing about how the old "slow" surface at Rod Laver Arena has cheated him — Hewitt decided to have a replica of the newly relaid court, complete with the latest "fast" Plexicushion surface, built at his $3 million Sydney hideaway.

But the tennis gods — presumably named Roger and Rafael — had other ideas.

Or perhaps Hewitt's father, Glynn, who is understood to have been overseeing construction of the new courts, didn't grasp his son's very specific instructions with the same level of intensity we've come to expect from a Hewitt.

The upshot is that despite Hewitt and his wife, Bec, receiving council approval to build two tennis courts on their property, a major bungle within the Hewitt camp has resulted in neither court being constructed with the blue Plexicushion surface.

Hewitt is furious.

The mix-up has scuppered Hewitt's plan to hole up with Bec, baby Mia, and coach Tony Roche at his Kenthurst property, north-west of Sydney, over the coming weeks to fine-tune his Australian Open preparation.

Instead, he will be forced to practise mainly at Sydney's Homebush Bay, where the courts have the quicker surface.

Hewitt's long-running battle with Tennis Australia over the slow Rebound Ace surface at the Australian Open came to a head almost two years ago when the former world No.1 screamed "fix the courts" during a disappointing second-round defeat against Argentina's Juan Ignacio Chela.

Frustrated at failing to nab the elusive title — despite conquering Wimbledon and the US Open — Hewitt badgered former Open director Paul McNamee about the Melbourne Park courts being too slow and said Australia's best players, who mostly prefer a quicker surface, should get what they wanted.

Earlier this year, he got his wish: the Rebound Ace surfaces were ripped up and replaced with the faster Plexicushion surface in readiness for next year's championship.

Unfortunately, Hewitt's cunning plan to have his own replica court at home on which to sharpen his winning edge has fallen wide of the line.