16th January, 2000

Hewitt threat

Aussie young gun Lleyton Hewitt has the game and the form to give the Australian Open a real shake. He played superbly to win the title in Sydney yesterday and in Adeliade the week before on Rebound Ace.

He's obviously hitting the ball very well and he's going into the Open with a lot of confidence. He was simply too strong for Jason Stoltenberg in the Adidas International final yesterday.

In a lot of ways, he's had the ideal preparation. But it's still going to be very difficult for him to win seven matches in a row.

There's no doubt, though that Lleyton has the game and the attitude to win. He is in the easier half of the draw and will meet American Paul Goldstein first up for he right to challenge Spain's Alex Corretja, whom he defeated in Sydney this week.

The other half of the draw contains most of the tournament's big guns - Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi and Mark Philippoussis. Yevgeny Kafelnikov must be laughing - but he's still got to get through a tricky section.

The two clear favorites are Agassi and Sampras. They won three of the four majors last year and, at their top, are extremely hard to knock off.

Philippoussis obviously has a huge chance given his form at the Davis Cup, the Hopman Cup and at Kooyong this week. He's been in the final of a major before and I'm sure the Davis Cup experience will have had a strong impact on him.

If Philippoussis can keep his focus as he did in Nice, he's going to give Agassi and Sampras a lot of trouble.

Missing the Australian Open singles is going to be a new experience for me after playing the tournament for the past eight years, but it certainly won't be depressing.

I would have loved to compete, but my shoulder is not strong enough to attempt to play best of five set matches at Grand Slam level agains the world's best.

But I'll be in Melbourne right through the tournament and I'll be doing a lot of the things I ususally miss out on during the Open.

I'm looking forward to playing doubles, a few rounds of golf, as well as getting more treatment from Lyn Watson.

Most of all, though, I'll be looking forward to sitting back and being a spectator with my girlfriend, Lara, and watching all of the Aussie boys in the singles.

I'll also be catching up with my family - with Peter, Steven and Geoff expected to come down from Queensland.

Melbourne Park is a great place to watch top class tennis and I'll be taking every opportunity to kick back with the boys.

I still hope to defend the doubles title I won last year with Jonas Bjorkman. I'm playing this year with Wayne Arthurs and it would be great to carry it off because winning it last year was one of the highlights of my career.

The most pleasing aspect about this weeks doubles at the Adidas International - apart from winning my first match with Wayne - was getting through with no problems in the shoulder. I've concentrated on maintaining the arm this week by using electrode pads and a lot of ice. The shoulder was fine the morning after the match and I was able to get through serving fairly conservatively.

I haven't tried the heavy kick serve yet and that's something I don't want to muck around with.

I've got to nurse the shoulder for a while, even though it's stronger now than it was before the operation. I've got to be patient.

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