ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP)—Top-ranked Novak Djokovic began his preparations for the 2012 season with a 6-2, 4-6, 6-2 win over No. 16 Gael Monfils at the World Tennis Championship exhibition event on Thursday.
 
Djokovic is coming off three Grand Slam wins during a 70-6 season. The 24-year-old Serb ended his best season with two tired losses at the ATP World Tour Finals last month.
 
Djokovic will face Roger Federer in the semifinals on Friday, and Rafael Nadal will meet fellow Spaniard David Ferrer.
 
Ferrer earlier beat Jo Wilfried Tsonga of France 2-6, 7-6 (5), 6-2 in the six-man field of the $250,000 winner-takes-all exhibition.
 
Djokovic said he’s not in top form and probably needs another week or two to be match ready. But he said he doesn’t plan to play any other warm-up tournaments ahead of the Australian Open, which run Jan. 16-29.
 
“I was working on some things throughout the match. I was trying to find a good rhythm and I think I was playing really well for this stage,” Djokovic said. “I am saying that as I am not yet 100 percent ready to perform at this level.”
 
Djokovic said he looked forward with his match with Federer, who received a bye to reach the semifinals.
 
“It is always a challenge to play Federer whether it is a tournament or exhibition,” he said. “He will always make you play well.”

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP)—Rafael Nadal plans to take several weeks off after the Australian Open to recover from a nagging shoulder injury.
 
The second-ranked Nadal said Thursday the injury surfaced before the ATP World Tour Finals in November and that he was still “not 100 percent.” He only decided three days ago to defend his title at the World Tennis Championships, a two-day exhibition tournament in Abu Dhabi.

“I had a problem before London with my shoulder and I had to stop for about 10 days before the (ATP) finals,” Nadal said Thursday in Abu Dhabi. “It felt better but again it resurfaced. In December, I did not have enough time to practice because of that.”
 
Nadal will play the winner of a match between Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and David Ferrer in the semifinals on Friday.
 
He is hopeful his shoulder will hold up in Abu Dhabi where he will attempt to win the tournament for the third year in a row and in Doha, where he plans to play at the Qatar Open next week. After competing at the Australian Open beginning Jan. 16, the 25-year-old Spaniard said he would take February off to rest and practice.
 
While praising the dominance of No. 1-ranked Novak Djokovic, who won three Grand Slams, Nadal blamed himself for allowing his play to become “too predictable” at times. But he insisted he wasn’t going to overhaul his game despite losing to Djokovic in six finals.
 
Nadal won the French Open, rallied Spain to victory in the Davis Cup final and finished 69-15 this season. He lost to Djokovic in the finals of Wimbledon and the U.S. Open.
 
“This is not the time to change many things. This is the time to keep playing well, to keep improving my tennis,” Nadal said. “I will just try and be competitive in all the tournaments. I was competitive in all the tournaments and was in three Grand Slam finals.”

by Pete Bodo

Here's a little Tony Roche story. In 1977, the stalwart Aussie Davis Cup doubles genius was approaching 33 and had gone a full decade without playing a singles for the green-and-gold. But he was unexpectedly called upon to open the final in Sydney's famed White City stadium against Italy's Adriano Panatta, who had won the 1976 French Open and was five years younger than Roche.  

Roche upset Panatta, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4, and Australia went on to win the Cup for the 23rd time.

In a way, this is also a Lleyton Hewitt story. For Roche is to Hewitt what Obi Wan Kanobe was to Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, or Billie Jean King was to Martina Navratilova: mentor, role-model and, lantern-bearer on any dark path in tennis. Roche is "old school." Hewitt is the closest thing we have to that among today's players.

Hewitt wlll be 31 in February, he's ranked 185 places below his career-best no. 1 (the mark he hit in September of 2001), and stepping gingerly on a left foot featuring a big toe that, according to a specialist in a position to know, is more bruised and beat up than any he had ever seen. Perhaps they can put it on display in a medical school after Hewitt is done abusing it.

It's a pity, though, that Hewitt is gimpy. Because he's all fired up about the Australian Open and in all other respects good to go. As he told the Melbourne newspaper, The Age: ''The rest of my body feels great, so that's probably even more frustrating. If I was breaking down in a lot of different areas, then you can sort of put up with it. . .If I can get over this foot injury, I feel great at the moment in terms of my ball striking. It's as good as it's been in a long time.''

Is there a player out there who better embodies the zeal for competition – or one who's more able to play in pain? He won't even take pain killers, because they upset his stomach. Hewitt is no. 186 in the world, entered in his native championships only by virtue of a charitable act (a wild card), and yet if you didn't know better and just went by his prognosis, you could be forgiven for thinking, Hey, he could win the whole shootin' match. 

As Roche reportedly said earlier this year: "Look, he'd be the toughest competitor I've ever seen."

This, from a guy who rubbed elbows on a regular basis with Rod Laver, tossed back beers with Ken Rosewall, and posted a 7-2 Davis Cup doubles mark playing mostly with multiple Grand Slam champ John Newcombe. 

I don't know about you, but I'd love to see Hewitt make one more strong run. Among other things, it would make up for the tears Hewitt admitted he shed for only the second time in his life when he lost the fifth-rubber of Australia's World Group Playoffs tie against a Swiss team led by Roger Federer. Hewitt was beaten, 6-3 in the fifth, by Stan Wawrinka. 

"Believe me, I'm still not over it yet," Hewitt said recently.

Did I mention that the only other time he says he cried was when Australia lost the final to Spain in 2000? On that occasion in Spain, on clay, Hewitt beat Albert Costa [note: corrected from original]  in five sets in the first rubber but Spain then rolled;  Juan Carlos Ferrero clinched with a win over Hewitt in the fourth match. It was a blow to Hewitt, who is 37-11 in Davis Cup singles, 47-14 overall, and prepared to lace 'em up any time the captain calls.

Hewitt's continuing appetite for combat is all the more noteworthy for two reasons: At 5-11 and 170-lbs, he was supposed to be one of those guys the game would leave behind in the new power era. But he won two majors and did a good stint at no. 1 while battling the likes of Sampras, Agassi, Safin, Kuerten, Roddick and others. And Hewitt  was not only small, he proved somewhat fragile everywhere but in the heart.

In 2005, while struggling with a hip injury that would ultimately require two rounds of surgery, he won three consecutive five-set matches against, in succession, Rafael Nadal, David Nalbandian (10-8 in the fifth) and Andy Roddick before he ran out of steam in the final. He lost to Marat Safin in what would be Hewitt's best chance to bag his homeland Grand Slam.

Hewitt got to the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open in 2006 on a bum knee (it ultimately required surgery) and his second hip surgery cost him two months last year. Partly because of his hip injury, Hewitt played just 20 matches in 2011 (9-11). I decided years ago that if there's any justice in the world, Hewitt would one day win the Australian Open. Alas, the days are dwindling to a precious few.

Rafael Nadal plans to take several weeks off after the Australian Open to recover from a nagging shoulder injury. The second-ranked Nadal said Thursday the injury surfaced before the ATP World Tour Finals in November and that he was still “not 100 percent.” He only decided three days ago to defend his title at the World Tennis Championships, a two-day exhibition tournament in Abu Dhabi.

Top-ranked Novak Djokovic began his preparations for the 2012 season with a 6-2, 4-6, 6-2 win over No. 16 Gael Monfils at the World Tennis Championship exhibition event on Thursday. Djokovic is coming off three Grand Slam wins during a 70-6 season. The 24-year-old Serb ended his best season with two tired losses at the ATP World Tour Finals last month.

James Blake has pulled out of Brisbane and the Australian Open with right knee trouble, TENNIS.com has learned. The 32-year-old American began the 2011 season ranked No. 135 and managed to push his ranking back up to No. 59 at the end of the season.

Blake, who reached a career-high ranking of No. 4 in 2006, has been struggling with knee trouble for the past two years. After refusing to take anti-inflammatory medication in 2009 and for part of 2010, he decided to start using it in an attempt to revive his fortunes, and the swelling in his knee did begin to decrease. He also experienced shoulder trouble earlier this year, but did manage to win two Challenger titles. Blake is scheduled to return in San Jose in early February.

In other news, American Donald Young has pulled out of the tournament in Brisbane so he can have another week to prepare for the Australian Open.—Matt Cronin

Kim Clijsters tells the Courier-Mail that she is not looking ahead to the 2012 Olympics, which could be her last event as a professional. “I’m defending my [Australian Open] title in a couple of weeks and so that’s a big deal for me as well. My next focus is Brisbane and that’s what I’m training for. That’s why I came here (before Christmas) to be ready to try and be the best Kim I can when I play my first match here,” she said.

Clijsters, who suffered a series of injuries in 2011, says that she changed her training routine. “Because of those injuries I’ve been able to change up the way that I work with my trainer, with my coach,” said the Belgian, who will open her season next week in Brisbane. “With my trainer I’ve been working a bit more towards the prevention of it all. Physically I feel really good and it’s a matter of keeping that level.”

The chronically injured Lleyton Hewitt has assured his team he is “100 percent” certain he will play the Australian Open, The Age reports. Hewitt is battling a foot injury. A specialist last week allegedly told the former No. 1 that his banged-up left big toe was the “worst he’d ever seen.”

New Zealand’s Sacha Jones has decided to play for Australia, the New Zealand Herald reports. Tennis New Zealand chief executive Steve Johns said the 21-year-old’s decision was “totally out of the blue. We were very surprised, a bit shocked, disappointed—all those emotions I think she’d made up her mind but we certainly did try and get her to change her mind. There’s been a reasonable amount of money invested in Sacha’s career. But we quickly realized that she’s a professional athlete and, yes, while we’d like New Zealand to feature in her plans, at the end of the day she’s looking after the best interests of her career.”

Jones is currently ranked No. 274. Her father is Australian.

James Blake has pulled out of Brisbane and the Australian Open with right knee trouble, TENNIS.com has learned. The 32-year-old American began the 2011 season ranked No. 135 and managed to push his ranking back up to No. 59 at the end of the season.

Blake, who reached a career-high ranking of No. 4 in 2006, has been struggling with knee trouble for the past two years. After refusing to take anti-inflammatory medication in 2009 and for part of 2010, he decided to start using it in an attempt to revive his fortunes, and the swelling in his knee did begin to decrease. He also experienced shoulder trouble earlier this year, but did manage to win two Challenger titles. Blake is scheduled to return in San Jose in early February.

In other news, American Donald Young has pulled out of the tournament in Brisbane so he can have another week to prepare for the Australian Open.—Matt Cronin