Today marks the start of the Madrid Masters Series which will be very interesting because it’s the first time since the US Open where Federer, Djokovic and Nadal are all in the same tournament. My intuition says that Nadal will play Federer in the final because playing in Spain will give him that little edge to take out Djokovic. This tournament will also be very interesting for Andy Murray as if he is to show that he is fully recovered from his recent injuries then it is the ideal place for him to kick-start the second half of his season and make his presence felt late on in the tournament. Ivo Karlovic and Thomas Berdych will also be dangerous contenders as Berdych has won this tournament before and Karlovic won Stockholm last week. The competition for the last three spots for Shanghai really hots up now between the likes of Haas, Blake, Robredo, possibly Murray and Berdych. Tennis will have the added exposure over the next few weeks of all the talk around betting and match-fixing. I think this is a healthy debate and I am pleased that it has come to the forefront as there is nothing worse in sport than the feeling that not everyone is competing to the best of their ability. I am convinced there is no problem in tennis and if there ever was one it would be a very isolated case.

In the Ladies it was good to see Davenport come back but it is also a little disturbing that someone who has had a baby and been out for over a year can return and win the first tournament that she plays, beating three established top 10 players. All credit to Davenport but I think that is the marked difference between the Women’s and Men’s Tours as it would be unlikely that Roger Federer, after a year out, could come back and win his first tournament. However Davenport coming back into the mix further strengthens the attraction of the Women’s game which now does have a clear No 1 in Justine Henin but at the same time there are so many women capable of winning the best tournaments in the world the list is fairly long with Venus and Serena, Sharapova, Jankovic, Ivanovic, Mauresmo, Kuznetsova and a couple of younger players Kirilenko, Vaidisova and Szavay also starting to break through. The dangerous floaters -- Dementieva, Bartoli and Hantuchova -- underlying the growing depth in women’s tennis. The Women’s Tour finals in Madrid this year will be a fabulous spectacle. 

Monte Carlo Tennis Academy

The Monte Carlo Tennis Academy has taken over Tennis 4 Everyone and therefore mctacademy.com, tennis4everyone.com and jezgreen.com plus a couple of new sites in development will all come under the Monte Carlo brand. This is an exciting development which gives the company strength and depth in a whole range of tennis knowledge and products. Over the next few weeks you will notice subtle changes in the websites as we move forward and improve our services.

For the latest results and news from the Academy visit www.mctacademy.com