Sportstoday

10 December 2000

Mark Woodforde today bowed out of tennis with a plea for Australia's new Davis Cup leadership to finally resolve the Mark Philippoussis issue.
John Fitzgerald and Wally Masur will take over next year as captain and coach from John Newcombe and Tony Roche, who bowed out after seven years with today's
loss in the final to Spain.
Fitzgerald and Masur will receive a class team, but as Newcombe pointed out, Pat Rafter may be around for only ''two or three'' more years, maybe less if his suspect
shoulder deteriorates.
Newcombe said Australian tennis would need to find another young star as back-up to 19-year-old Lleyton Hewitt, but in the meantime, Woodforde believes every
effort should be made to have 24-year-old Philippoussis as a regular and settled member of the team.
''It would be pretty tough to ignore a guy ranked in the top 15,'' said Woodforde of the 11th-ranked Melburnian.
''Our team is so much stronger and better if you have a guy like Philippoussis playing. You have a choice of three singles players.
''How rare is it to have a choice of three top 10 singles players in a team? That's a huge advantage over a lot of other countries.
''It would be great to see him back there but it's up to Mark, It's his final choice.''
Though he would prefer him to play, Woodforde said it was important to have Philippoussis once and for all ruled in or out of Australia's set-up.
He urged Fitzgerald and Masur to speak privately with Philippoussis himself, away from his handlers and the media spotlight.
''It's up to Fitzy and Wally to sit down face to face with him and give that a try,'' said Woodforde.
''If you can just get to him and get all the outside influences away from him, just speak face-to-face and hear it from the horse's mouth.
''If you don't want to play that's fine ... but don't chop and change, say you're going to play and then make up an excuse that you're injured.''
Philippoussis has infuriated the Australian camp with his unaailabity on several occasions.
The latest came when a knee injury was cited as his excuse for missing this year's semi-final win over Brazil - a move which prompted Rafter to call on him to ''stop
jerking us around''.
- AAP