12th December, 1999 SCUD REACHES GRAND HEIGHTS Of all the great things to emerge from Australia's 3-2 Davis Cup final win over France, few would top the performance of Mark Philippoussis. For somebody who hadn't played Davis Cup for seven months, Mark handled the pressure very well. There have been comparisons between my match against Cedric Pioline in 1997 and Mark's against Cedric last week. The biggest difference was pressure. My match was in the first round in Australia. Mark's was in the final, away from home, and he had a lot more pressure on him. I was really impressed with the way he handled the situation and he never looked like panicking. If Mark can hold hold it together in a similar way over two weeks, it is only a matter of time before he wins a Grand Slam title. He showed he had it in him at the US Open last year and would have gained a lot of confidence out of the Davis Cup final. Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde also rose to the occasion under pressure. With the tie level at 1-1, Australia needed a win from the Woodies and, after a difficult start, the boys fired up and changed the momentum of the tie. If Australia had lost that match there would have been even more pressure on Mark and Lleyton Hewitt going into the last day. The boys really deserved their win. It was a complete team effort and I don't think Lleyton should be too hard on himself over his loss to Pioline. The challenge for us all now is to defend the Cup next year. If everything goes to plan, I want to play against Switzerland in the first round in February, but I won't be rushing back if my shoulder is not up to it. I'd be happy to play doubles with Mark Philippoussis if that's what Newk (John Newcombe) has in mind. We've played together quite a bit before in the past and would be a good combination in Davis Cup. But it's up to Mark. If he doesn't want to play both singles and doubles, I can understand that. I'm impressed with the ATP Tour's new ranking system, but I think they've mucked up the format with the old Super 9s, which will be known as the Masters Series. The Super 9s, the nine biggest tournaments outside the Grand Slams, are now mandatory for players with rankings high enough to play them. But the scheduling of the new events is wrong. The top players will be automatically entered to play them, regardless of preference, and will have to travel all over the place just to meet that obligation, which dosn't help anybody. I won't be chasing a ranking. If that means not playing some of those tournaments when the schedule doesn't fit what I need to be doing, so be it. There will be players penalised for not performing well in the Masters series and others for missing them, but there will be some who will benefit by not playing them. If your ranking is not good enough to get you into a Masters series, you can go off and play nine other events and if you do well, end up just outside the top 10. The shoulder is coming along pretty well but I pulled up a bit sore after hitting a couple fo times last week. The arm hurt in the area around the shoulder and it's now a matter of making sure I don't over-use it and remain patient. I haven't entered the Australian Open singles, but I'm hoping to get a wild card if the shoulder recovers enough to play the Grand Slam event. I won't know if I'll be able to do that for a while yet. If I can't play singles, I'd like to defend the doubles title.