Happy New Year everyone, let the season begin!

Alas, the, 2000 season is marked with injuries and withdrawals before it starts. Monica Seles and Lindsay Davenport both withdrew from an exhibition in Hong Kong: Seles with her recurring foot problems, and Davenport with a chest virus. We hope they will be in top form for the Australian Open. On the men?s side, Pat Rafter will likely be able to play only doubles, at the most, in Melbourne, Marcelo Rios and Greg Rusedski will not be able to start the year in Australia because of recent surgery, while up-and-comer Marat Safin began the season ominously with a withdrawal from the Chennai tourney because of elbow pain.

Hopefully this is not a sign that 2000 will be an injury-riddled season, we had too much of that in 1999?.

As we anticipated last month, the year 2000 will see a new German Davis Cup chief. Boris Becker resigned from the position of team manager in late December, despite the fact that the newly-elected president of the German tennis federation (DTB), Georg von Waldenfels, was widely regarded as a Becker ally. Becker, noting the painfully obvious, admitted his persona had become a detriment to the team. "It was the only decision to take after the experiences of these recent months. During this year my name and my personality have been the subject of some irritation," he stated. Former German captain Niki Pilic, who coached Becker to two Davis Cup crowns, was more blunt in his assessment: ?Boris Becker failed.?

German number one Nicolas Kiefer has been feuding with Becker, and this was the major problem in Boris? short reign. Although Kiefer has not yet confirmed officially, it is expected that he will rejoin the Boris-free German squad in 2000.

Carl-Uwe Steeb will assume the dual role of DC manager-captain in the wake of Becker?s resignation.

Most ATP players seem of the opinion that the new Y2K ranking system to be employed by the ATP is a positive step. However, there are a few discordant notes: not surprisingly, coming from the clay-courters.

Alex Corretja opined in the Spanish press that, while he approved of the idea that all players start the year at zero and engage in a ?race? for number one, he felt that the obligation to play all Grand Slams and Super Nines (now called the ?Masters Series?) was not fair to the players who are strongest on clay. Corretja points out that ?9 of the 13 compulsory tournaments are on fast surfaces, which is very unfair to clay court players."

This raises the issue of whether clay should be considered as an equal (or near-equal) to non-clay surfaces, or whether it should be regarded as one of four principal surfaces (hard, grass and carpet being the others).

I think Corretja is oversimplifying slightly when he divides the circuit into clay and fast courts. For example, the Australian Open is played on a hard court (Rebound Ace), but it is a slow hard court on which clay-lovers Rios and Moya have reached the finals in the last three years. But he does have a point.

However, to the extent that it might encourage the clay players who are often reluctant to play in events such as Wimbledon and the Canadian Open (which is a Masters Series event but whose timing conflicts with relatively minor clay court events in Europe) to make more appearances in non-clay events, the new system is a good thing. One of the unfortunate aspects of men?s tennis is the extreme surface specialization that too often places clay court specialists in a different tennis world from their rival tennis brethren. And these guys can learn to handle faster surfaces: witness Corretja?s Hannover win in 1998 and Nicolas Lapentti?s strong showing on all surfaces in 1999.

In short, bringing the clay and non-clay orbits into closer alignment is a positive move, although I understand the frustration of the dirt boys that it is happening on the terms of the fast-surface lads?.

With their regular partners Mahesh Bhupathi and Daniel Nestor recovering from surgery, Indian Leander Paes and Canadian Sébastien Lareau have decided to join forces at the Australian Open, according to the Indian press. This should be a tough pair to beat, as Paes in ranked #1 in this discipline and Lareau won seven doubles titles last year, including the US Open and ATP World Championship with Alex O?Brien. Moreover, this is a reunion of sorts: Paes and Lareau played together regularly in 1993 and 1994, notably reaching the US Open semifinals.

With new teams on both the women?s and men?s side (at last word the Australian Open could see Hingis/Pierce, Sanchez-Vicario/Zvereva, Kournikova/Schett, O?Brien/Palmer, Arthurs/Rafter), Y2K should be an interesting year of doubles action.