Creative Differences.

"Todd is a fantastic person," said Djokovic. "He has so much experience and was willing to share everything with me. There are no hard feelings but we just decided it was not working. It was probably a question of understanding what kind of person I am."

…

"At the ATP Finals in London my shoulder was tired and the body automatically started to make adjustments because of that," Djokovic explained. "Then we tried a slightly different action and it all got very complicated. So now I am just going back to my original action."

-- Fox News

I’m sure Todd is a very nice person too. But that’s a very telling comment on understanding the kind of person Djoko is.

So what was it? Tactical disputes? Personality issues? A culture clash? Too many cooks? Creative Differences even?

The culture clash theory is the one that’s been most widely pored over, with suggestions of Todd’s somewhat milder temperament being at odds with Djoko’s “outwardly cocky and self-confident” personality.

That’s hardly news, is it? Even less impressed with the reductive image of the “emotional European” – especially as Marion Vajda (who I’m rather a fan of) strikes me as one of the most composed coaches on tour.

It is, however, of some relief to know that that horrendous javelin-throwing service action wasn’t simply a figment of my imagination – can’t say I’m sorry to see it go.

The most obvious questions on the appointment of the relatively unknown Leon Smith as Davis Cup Captain revolve on the extraordinary lengths the LTA seem to have gone in order to placate Andy Murray.

Andy and Greg, you’ll remember, are not the best of friends.

"When Roger Draper came into the LTA it was all about a world-class leadership team, world-class people and this is it; four years down the track we are putting someone in charge of the men's game and the Davis Cup who has none of these qualities," he [Mark Petchey] told Sky Sports.

"So are we saying the strategy before was wrong and now we're on the right one, or are we actually saying we don't have a clue and are sticking somebody in the job who we think might persuade Andy Murray to play Davis Cup?

"Andy will make his own decision and I know Andy, he was happy to go with the majority view of what the players wanted in terms of a Davis Cup captain - and the majority of those players wanted Greg Rusedski."

-- Sky Sports

Were the presence of Andy Murray not absolutely essential to Team GB’s future success, you could almost argue that this reeks of a mild strain of nepotism.

Why should national strategy be predicated on the say-so of any one player (however celebrated)?

Why should he be able naysay the appointment of someone the rest of the players have approved and seem to respect?

Not that that’s remotely close to what I think is happening here.

Call me naive, but haven’t people always had to knuckle down alongside those they wouldn’t normally share a drink with, not just in tennis but in almost all professional walks of life?

However much he may dislike Rusedksi, Murray’s objections to Davis Cup seem to me to have rather more to do with with wanting to focus on winning Slams.

What if despite these attempts at appeasement (if that’s what they are), he still doesn’t turn up to play?

"Leon's my friend, but I need to still do what's right for me," said Murray.

"If I want to play, I'm playing for the team, it's not that I'm playing because Leon's the captain.

"I hope that was not the reason why he became captain. I don't think that's the way to make a decision on something as big as this.”

-- BBC Tennis

Oops.

***

There’s an elephant in the room.

The media have been astonishingly muted about it, but let that not deceive us.

With what we know of Rafa’s form (and knee), the usual tally of clay court titles remains an uncertainty. And that spells trouble.

It’s not that an early loss at any of the upcoming events would be entirely catastrophic – for all we know it might be exactly what he needs – more that it would alter the landscape in a way that might not be reversible.

Still not completely sure what I mean by that, so I’ll say no more.

Never has the clay season been more or less about Rafa.

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Demonic Numerology, Hydras and ‘Inglourious Basterds’

Having been downed 3-2 by Lithuania (a country with only three world ranked players, only one of which is inside the top 500) the Brits now face a precarious face-off with Turkey in July to avoid tumbling into the bacteria-infested swamplands of Euro-Africa Zone Group 2 – the bargain-less basement of Davis Cup Competition.

With not a goat amongst them to help mitigate against the fall.

It ain’t pretty down there.

The press quite predictably showed no mercy. Why would they?

It is one of the most humiliating moments we have ever suffered. The ecstatic Lithuanians are dancing up and down on the corpse of British tennis.

20 years ago, Lithuania were not recognised as a tennis playing nation, but Britain has lost to a team of teenagers.

-- The Times

The wreckage was not of broken bottles or body parts, the stench not of alcohol poisoning, but British tennis had effectively been stripped bare, roped to a tree and beaten with branches.

Defeat to Lithuania had been total humiliation. At least the bosses admitted so. "It's like being in a very bad dream," LTA chief executive Roger Draper told BBC Sport. "Along with lots of other British tennis fans [we are] sharing the humiliation of losing to Lithuania."

-- Jonathan Overend, BBC

It’s not often you see such a deliberately sadistic tinge applied to the metaphors crafted by the British Press.

With these descriptive diatribes involving corpses, flagellation and broken bottles, one wonders about the passages that never made it into print on the grounds of good taste.

One might easily imagine descriptions of gang rape and necrophilia.

They want blood, you see.

This panto, that’s seen the Nation’s Press in the role of Grand Inquisitor, rousing up the masses against tennis’s powers that be, who for the time being remain nestled away in an ivy clad tower with an SW15 postcode, has something like the French Revolution about it.

It's also beginning to feel like it’s run it’s course.

My guess is heads will roll this time round. As they ought to have a long time ago.

Except John Lloyd’s need not be amongst them

Despite his future as DC Captain now in the balance, he has somewhat tastefully, been spared the worst of the wrath and vitriol, with commentators once again calling for all nine heads of the Hydra, otherwise known as the LTA, to be neatly severed.

Preferably in one clean sweep.

The only people who should have been saying sorry were those who have lived very nicely thank you while the game in Britain has fallen into unacceptable disrepair.

…

What is it about these [Lithuanian] players, what have they got that ours have not? Hunger? Desire? Talent? Spirit? The present LTA regime has had enough time to find the answers and they have palpably failed, so they should depart.

-- The Times

Whip? Meet Dead Horse – Dead Horse? Cat o’nine tails.

Spraying Myla Rose coloured poo at the LTA seems both an overly-worn and suspiciously knee-jerk reaction.

I don’t want to be an Inglourious Basterd about this, but it’s difficult to see where else (if anywhere) the buck should stop.

You can hardly blame John Lloyd even though he’ll now likely be forever remembered as the only British Captain to preside over five consecutive losses (that and being the one time beau of Chris Evert).

Nor as the Muzz-Haters would have it, does Murray have anything to answer for in this torrid affair. It was his involvement (with an injured wrist) after all in the relegation play-off against Poland last year, that handed us one our rare live rubber wins.

I certainly don’t blame the players.

James Ward made history this weekend by becoming only the fourth player in the last thirteen years to win a live Davis Cup Rubber, and 19-year old Dan Evans left everything (including his bloodied pulsating heart) out on court despite coming up short in two five setters, in the latter of which the play of his 18 year old Lithuanian opponent Laurynas Grigelis left the The Times wondering “what British teenager ranked outside the world’s top 500 could possibly have performed with such maturity?”

Dare I utter the word that dare not speak its name? At least not here in the UK.

Depth.

Men’s tennis, as we are regularly told, has bucket-loads of it right now.

Here in the UK we like to mostly keep quiet about it.

It’s like one of those noteworthy examples of insularity when a worldwide phenomenon completely passes you by. Like say, China and the Credit Crunch, only the other way round and with significantly less yield per capita.

Britain may have talent, it’s just that Spain and France have a whole lot more. Sacking John Lloyd won’t change any of that.

With a budget of £59.7m for 2009, which included £25m for high performance player development, the LTA expenditure dwarfs that of the LTU, which had a budget of around £90,000.

-- BBC

You do the math. Oh alright I will. Even if we restrict our comparison to the amount of money put aside for “high performance development”, the numbers make grim reading: 27700% more grim.

Comparing both nations’ total budgets yields a figure of approximately 66600%.

Numerology both ironic and demonic as you’re ever likely to see.

Contenders for greater mass mis-expenditure? Sir John Chilcott, certainly has his work cut out this week.

I’ve never believed in laying blame solely at a manager or team captain’s door in any sport, however results driven it might be.

In this particular case, the failures appear to be more suggestive of a far reaching institutionalised and systemic disorder that has resulted in an inability to produce players capable of holding their own on the world stage, much less winning big budget events.

Greg Rusedski is rumoured to be lined up to pick up the pieces, though it’s difficult to see what change, if any, he can bring.

Well-placed sources confirmed to The Times last night that he had been sounded out. On his Twitter feed, Rusedski described the defeat as “unbelievable”.

He would be an intriguing choice, not least because he would be the first non-British-born captain since Warren Jacques, the Australian, was appointed in the late 1980s.

Rusedski has made no secret of the fact that he would love to do the job, but how that appointment goes down with Murray, whom the LTA needs to keep sweet, could be the determining factor.

-- The Times

After Pete Bodo’s “well placed sources” left him with more of those organically certified speckled quails eggs on his face over the likelihood of Federer’s presence (or otherwsie) at Indian Wells this week, I’m taking every dish I’m served with a generous sprinkling of sodium bicarbonate.

I’m rarely in agreement with much of what gets made of Murray’s ‘gruff’ disposition, especially as it gives rise to a nasty divisive Anglo-Scot sentiment we could frankly do without. That said though, when was he ever considered “sweet” about anything?

Whatever the case, it really doesn’t sound like they’re the best of friends.

Going into the WTF in London at the end of last year, Greg Rusedski and Barry Cowan were amongst the many voices alerting Murray to the need to raise the levels of aggression present in his game:

"Yeah, who are these 'experts'?" Murray asked, rhetorically. "Barry Cowan? Greg Rusedski? I think I know more about tennis than Barry and Greg. I work very hard with my coaching team to come out with the right game-plan. I've been told a lot of times that I'm very astute.

--The Telegraph

This, from early 2009, when (short-lived) rumours were raised of a potential comeback from Greg at the age of thirty five, to represent the UK at Davis Cup:

Murray has remained extremely polite in public, limiting himself to saying that when he retires he will stay retired. Behind the scenes he is said to have made it clear that if Rusedski were ever to be considered for a recall then the LTA could forget about him playing. End of story.

--The Guardian

End of story for him maybe. But I suspect this saga has another chapter or two to go.

***

Word just out: David (rather than John) Lloyd calling for Roger Draper to walk.

I can’t watch. *Averts eyes*

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Carnage.

I was going to try to not get drawn into the knife throwing contest that took place on the back pages of this morning's papers. And I haven't much to add on what need or need not now take place at the LTA. A dysfunctional organisation with a staff turnover problem almost as big as that of producing world class players.


I remain clear on one thing though: I don't think you can blame the players for Tuesday's carnage. Only saved from being the worst British Open Era performance at Wimbledon by Elena Baltacha's three set win over Alona Bondarenko. It's now joint worst with what took place here two years ago, when only 17% of Brits survived the first round. So that's ok then.

I don't blame Dan Evans, a guy who a few weeks back was, and may still be (current ranking #305), the world's highest ranked 19 year old. Yes he could have given a better account of himself, but let's be fair. Nikolay - four time Slam semi finalist (grass court discrepancies and all) - in the first round - really? Britain's best hope for a post-Murray future had this to say:

“While Andy is winning, I don't think any eyes are going on any of the others,” Evans said. “Let's be honest, we are all 200 to 300 in the world. They shouldn't know who we are.
...
"You've got to earn a living sooner or later. It's a matter of respect. I've got bigger things to do than than sit around in Futures tournaments.

"I might not even be a tennis player soon. I might be stacking shelves. I haven't had to think about that yet but Tesco are advertising.

"I'm not going to get to 24 or 25 and still be asking for wildcards, simple as that."

(Source: The Sun)

I don't even blame the press's favourite whipping boy Alex Bogdanovic, whose eight consecutive first round losses here have resulted in the LTA finally calling time on his supply of wildcards. He receives way more than what I'd consider his fair share of flak, nevertheless you would have thought five consecutive losses would have been enough.

Amidst the chorus of derision this morning the most concise and factual assessment came from young cable-knit himself:

Murray said: "It's disappointing. The depth needs to get way better. It's not acceptable. That's not picking out any players in particular because I watched some of them play and some of them played well.

"But they aren't at the same level as a lot of the guys. They don't play at this level too often because they're not ranked that high so when the tight moments come they don't play as well. It's not good."

(Source: The Independent)

That it isn't.

***

I didn't post anything on Murray's match yesterday for the simple reason that I wasn't that impressed. He seems to be operating at the same level Djoko is right now. And though Kendrick pushed him hard yesterday, that match shouldn't have lasted nearly as long as it did. Not if you think he's a contender for the title.

But what really got up my nose, is he wasn't decked out in that cricket jumper. I don't care that it was over 24 degrees out there. You don't torment us with tantalisingly comedic photoshoots only to come on court days later with nothing more threatening than a comely white jacket.
It's like Superman coming to rescue you without his cape, with 'out of bed' hair and a five o'clock shadow.

Anyway, be scared of Ernie Gulbis Andy. Be very scared. His lacklustre form of late is apparently down to a new physical regime which his body's taking time to adjust to. A sort of step back so he can take two steps forward, if you like. I wouldn't be surprised to see that match go to five sets.

What else? Sharapova out today in three tough sets to Argentine Gisela Dulko. Dulko's not the biggest hitter and has what you would call a slight frame. It was always going to be tough against Maria, an opponent from whom she's only managed to win a handful of games in the past.

But Maria wasn't anywhere near her best. We already knew that, with the time she spent out of the game.

But she wasn't even that close to her unexpectedly good form of Paris or Warsaw either. And that bothered me. I really thought we might see something special from her on what is after all her favourite surface.

"You want somma this..."
(Photo: AFP)

Azarenka continues to provoke animosity from the crowd. Though things weren't as hostile as Paris. Things are never as hostile as Paris. For today at least, they were content to imitate her grunting. In between points mind you. They're polite like that.
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Put'Em Up!

And so the fightback begins.

I know I said I wouldn't make any more postings on the LTA, but in keeping with "Tennis Is Served's" world renowned reputation for independence (huh!) and fair play (almost) I thought I had to give Roger Draper a chance to present his rebuttal.

I had a feeling that the LTA (and by extension Draper) wouldn't take too kindly to Mark Petchey's somewhat high profile attack (more so, considering they are his former employers). After all, calling for the dismantling of the organisation (which presumably includes Draper's job) isn't the subtlest form of criticism.

I'm inclined to not be too hard on Draper as he's only been in charge since 2006, and I do agree with his assertion that change cannot be brought about overnight. But he does himself and the LTA a disservice by not squarely addressing what was presumably Petchey's most pressing complaint: that not enough of that £10 million Draper suggests is being channelled into facilities, is being used to build the game (to quote Petchey) 'from the bottom up' by 'putting rackets in the hands of kids' and subsidising coaching. Instead he talks at length about coaching, high performance centres and marketing, which frankly contains little to convince me that the LTA has started to think of anything other than leafy middle class clubs as their target market.

However, I also can't help but think that the headline "We're getting there..." is the brainchild of a particularly fiendish cynic. That phrase was adopted by British Rail as a slogan in the 80s during it's death throes and only a couple of years before it was privatised. It's considered by some to be (to quote the BBC) "the greatest marketing own goal of all time", as BR were at the time, getting nowhere fast.

A little unfair to Draper though perhaps: a bit like tripping him up on his way to the podium before he's had a chance to present his defence.
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'Baby-Fed' - No Not That One (or The Happening of all Happenings)...

That's quite enough mauling of the LTA for now, I'm sure it does do some things right and it has after all come a long way in actually recognising that something is amiss (very amiss) - so I'm going to cut them some temporary slack and leave them to get their 'Lawn Tennis' act together, (you're welcome to have a parting shot 2Hander)...

Anyway, we don't want to be talking about that do we? Roger's gonna have a kid - or hadn't you heard? Will it affect his game, the way it appeared to affect Hewitt's? Will the birth coincide with a 6th win at the All England Club (not to mention equalling of Pete's record)? Was the announcement timed to quash the Cahill Rumour Mill? What will it be named? And more to the point, how are we now going to refer to young Reeshard, now that there's a new Baby-Fed in town?

Oh yes, it's all very frenetic in the Roger-Federated Blogosphere - which must right now look like one of those writhing, molten, engine-like images of the earth's mantle you always see in a Plate-tectonics documentary.

(The Roger-Federer Blogosphere: The Happening of all Happenings)

Which is why I want to talk about doubles. That may seem a little strange as doubles mostly ranks w-a-a-a-y-y down on my list of tennis priorities come any Major.

I don't know if anyone's seen the men's doubles draw at Indian Wells. If you haven't DO SO. I'll even give you a minute to take it all in.



Looking good, no? Star gazingly, blinding I would say. Where's the Fridge?

I would also like you all to turn your collective attention to the pairing taking on the Bryans in their opening match. Well looky looky here! Spookeeeeeey. Except this makes his choice to not play last weeks Davis Cup tie all the more bewildering - could he not have got some doubles practice in there (and silenced the critics), if that is what he's after? I almost don't care - I just want a ticket to that match.

Now take a look at the pairing (marked number 3 in your lecture notes) they are set to meet if they conquer the Bryans. The stewards will be handing out sponges if you need to wipe some of that foam off your mouths - please take them from the one closest to your end of the lecture theatre. I want a ticket for that one too.

But it doesn't stop there - Verdasco and Lopez, Stepanek and Llodra, Berdych and Kiefer, (Andy) Murray and Ross Hutchins, Simon and Chardy, Monfils and Zverev, Gasquet and Wawrinka, Gonzales and Robredo, Tsonga and Ancic, Roddick and Fish, Del-Potro and Nalbandian!??

Some observations - Gonzales and Robredo (a contrast of sorts), Tsonga and Ancic (top volleyers both of them), Roddick and Fish (won't be pretty but when was the last time that happened?) and my personal favourite Del-Potro and Nalbandian (I sense a storm brewing - weren't these two supposed to hate one another?).

What is going on with the world!? This is the portion of the tennis calendar I'm meant to be able to cursorily dismiss. 'Not star-studded enough' - I think, is the argument I usually use.

Think the top seeds are feeling a little upstaged?
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Debunking the Bunkum (or 'Harman-ising' the Hooey)

I'm sorry, and I promise this will be my last pot shot at the LTA for some time, but I simply couldn't let this one pass.

Having worked in the IT Consultancy industry for over 10 years I've seen more than my fair share of BS; and it usually involves suited late 20 somethings (considering themselves on a fast track to management) attempting to sell their clients stuff they don't need, by performing a techno-linguistic tap dance that is deliberately designed to be as confusing as it is meaningless. Expect to hear phrases like 'business solutions', 'leverage' and my personal favourite, 'adding value'.

It's all part of an elaborate ruse you see: rope your clients into agreeing to let you build crap software that maybe only addresses 20% of your clients' real business needs - who will, too late in the day realise what they're really after, but will by then be knee deep in a stinking writhing mess that is too full of bugs (that's software glitches) to even properly address the 20% of what it purports to do. Cue, another lengthy lucrative contract to fix some of those defects (which of course they're best placed to fix considering they put them there) and add further 'value' during the next 'phase' of your 'streamlining initiative'.

What's this all got to do with Tennis, and the LTA in particular? Well, they've been bandying around the term 'on track' for a while now, except nobody appears to know what it means. So Neil Harman from The Times asked them - asked Steve Martens, the LTA's Player Director, in fact:

“For us,” Martens said, "on track is a very interesting element to get a good quality philosophy about the way we build that pipeline (ie. how the LTA produces players).

I'm sorry, WHAT!? It's not wholly unintelligible of course, but bears all the consultancy hallmarks of garnering credibility by obfuscation and omission. "All that stuff you don't understand and I don't appear to mention? Well there's something deeply mystical going on here that I can only attempt to explain to you if you pay me £x-hundred-thousand over y-years."

"If we want to build that pipeline, we can do it with a clipboard and say ‘I think he's good, I think he's not so good’.

“We can also take the approach where you have the eye of the experienced people and their ability to spot talent, which is a continuous process - you keep on Talent ID-ing when players are 20 or 21, you have to back it up also with facts. The facts in tennis are actually pretty easy to get.

“You have individual rankings which are fantastic but also very hard for young children but fantastic because there are many different circuits, the Tennis Europe circuit, the ATP circuit, the ITF circuit, the WTA circuit. We can drag back to where [Rafael] Nadal was or Murray was at a specific stage and we know there are specific benchmarks which are the minimum we have to get to have a certain per cent of a chance and every time you are ahead of those benchmarks the better your chances are to get there, to progress more quickly, and when you progress more quickly, you also progress further and higher.

OK, so what you're essentially saying here is that you're getting a key team of high-level experts (or a high-level team of key experts) to engage in a continual performance monitoring effort, the metrics of which can then be used to chart progress (or otherwise) against an extrapolated set of benchmarks (or critical success factors) obtained from the career histories of the younger elite players, like Nadal and Murray.

Clear? Nope - let's distill it one level further - no sorry, let's 'drill down':

A bunch of coaches continually tracks your performance (%age of first serves in etc.) and uses this record to understand whether or not you are where you ought to be in relation to where Nadal was when he was at your stage of development (note he doesn't use the word age).

That's better surely.

“So when we come to these [on track] figures, it is a element for us to give a view on where we are going to invest our resources. Technical support and also to show to the people, because it is clear that we are not working with all the players hands-on, ourselves.

So players that are 'on-track' (continue to) get investment. Those that aren't, don't (or have it withdrawn). Plus you get to produce some sleek-looking Powerpoint presentations to justify your investment choices. Get-it?

“We have an approach with a lot of high performance centres around the country; it is also a benchmark element for them. On track doesn't mean a guaranteed success. when we have 25, 30, 35 players on track it does not mean in the next five years we will have those players in the top 100.

See it's a shame, that. Be nice to think these 'benchmarks' actually meant something.

“That will be a Chinese invasion on the world rankings which will not happen. but we know these are elements to measure our progress to the position we occupy in the different age categories which are all leading to a possibility to get more players to the highest level.”

Not completely sure what that means; Harman says he was glazed over by this point, and I understand why. I guess he means, that the more players that are 'on-track', the more likely some of them are to get to the highest level - maybe.

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Mark Petchey on 'Show Me the Money'...

After yesterday's post on the bleak state of British Tennis and 2Hander's followup assessment (one which I largely agree with), I thought it would be worth sharing this article by Mark Petchey, as he seems to share our frustration and suggests more 'out of the box' ways at how we might improve things. He also includes a fascinating breakdown of how the LTA choses to channel the whopping £37.1 million it received from Wimbledon - literally showing us (in no uncertain terms) the money!

GB's inability to produce quality players capable of competing at the higher levels of the game, is a source of great frustration to most British tennis lovers as the LTA, whatever else you may think about it, does not want for cash. Yet they continue to pour money into initiatives which ultimately only benefit the well off.

Like Petchey, I don't blame the British players, though I was a little incensed to learn that a player ranked outside of the top 200 can command funding of up to £50k - correct me if I'm wrong, but that's more than the total prize money on offer at some of the lower level ATP events! I wonder what Ana (suddenly those images of her bashing double handers in an emptied out swimming pool seem less cheesy), Novak and countless others that have risen in the rankings these last few years would have to say about that!

So what's gone wrong Petchey?

Too much of this money is spent in areas where it isn't helping build tennis courts, subsidise coaching, putting rackets in the hands of kids and growing the sport from the bottom up.

I don't want to put too fine a point on this, hence the somewhat clumsy bold type face of the points I strongly agree with. In fact we couldn't agree more if we tried. I grew up playing on cement Tennis Courts at my local Park, and although there were one or two cracks with grass growing in between it (and one rather large mole hill!) was a little lucky that for a good few years they were well maintained and accessible price wise. Not so many children had that type of access up and down the country.

The point he makes that stands out for me most is that of subsidised coaching. I saw so much talent and love for the game during those years in my early teens, that I can't help but wonder what might have been had they had access to quality regular coaching sessions. But coaching, along with many other initiatives was (and for the most part continues to be) invariably tied to Club participation - which is simply beyond the reach of most families.

The time has come to disband the LTA in its present structure. In its place should be a group of about eight people who decide how best the money should be spent. In this group I would like to see Tim Henman, David Lloyd and Judy Murray. Not all the services and departments can be discarded, but the cost saving would be immense and would allow substantial investment in grassroots tennis.

Now you're talking Petchey - though I never had you down as a revolutionary! That could almost be construed as fighting talk (!), though it's interesting you chose to include Tim Henman (and not Greg Rusedski who already has a talent spotting role) in your elite band of mercenaries. Not that I don't think he would add something useful to the money spending debate, it's just I don't think he's ever said he wants a role like that either within or outside of the LTA.

The substantial reduction in the cost to parents because of the investment in clubs would ensure a healthy flow of players taking up the game and staying in it. We simply have too few players. The reason is that tennis is still too expensive and for many parents it becomes a labour of love.

A point we've already made and that can't be stressed enough.
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Dubai Beauty-Free...

The tit-for-tat continues in Dubai as the event organisers claimed that Andy's withdrawal had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with the scheduling problems he'd face having made it to the final of Memphis (a tournament he won I'm happy to say, finally putting a stop to Radek and his one-man pageant).

I just want to say one more thing about the whole affair before putting this ugly mess to bed. There can be no doubt that the whole thing was a very badly handled episode on the part of the powers that be in Dubai. Shahar deserved to play here and wasn't allowed to. As we've heard so often this last week, sports and politics really shouldn't mix, not least because you run the risk of trivialising what are generally considered deeply upsetting events. But I also find it worrying that large parts of the media display uncanny insensitivity by continuing to act as if there is no history involved, choosing instead to run with the rather more safe 'sport'n politics don't mix' headline.

Millions around the globe see it differently - just sayin'.

On a more positive note, one of our girls has just cracked the top 50. I'm sure you'll permit me a Stepanek like side-trot -- actually I'll go with the Vicht-Salute on the grounds of good taste -- we've had to wait 16 years for this. I started to take notice when I heard Keothavong was through to the semis at Memphis where she suffered a rather less uplifting 6-1,6-0 defeat to Caroline Wozniacki. Ouch. I also find her references to unprofessionalism within the LTA quite interesting. Anyone know what that is all about?

Tsonga took the title in Marseille last week. I'm loving the way he's begun his campaign in 2009. The injuries seem to be well handled; and I'm detecting signs of some much needed poise in his recent performances - we all know how dangerous he is at his most explosive - his ranking though, might demand more measured and sustained performances throughout the year.

As thrilled as I am for Tsonga, his win here included yet another dismantling of Djoko, whose number 3 ranking is beginning to look less and less convincing. I don't know - it's not as if the Scot behind him was that electric in his Dubai opening match today - but Andy seems to have it cracked against most of the opposition (though by the sounds of it will be in no hurry to leave his more palatial quarters).

Djoko is now 1-4 against Tsonga. In 2008, he lost 2 out his 3 matches against Federer (who was if you remember having a pretty bad time of it), 4 out of 6 against Nadal (2 out of 3 if you exclude clay courts) and 2 out of 3 against Murray. If Tsonga and Roddick continue to beat up on him, that Serbian dream may remain just that. Here's hoping he turns it around in Dubai and IndianWells/Miami. The top of the game will be so much the better for it.
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