Roger Federer isn’t above some mind games going into the Australian Open, saying that defending champion Novak Djokovic may have made a mistake switching from Wilson to HEAD right before a Grand Slam: “I mean it’s tough because there’s always a factor with the weather, how do you play, day form, you know, other contenders, the pressure, now a new racquet,” Federer said on Djokovic defending the Aussie Open title. “I’m quite surprised he made a switch like this in the best phase of his career. He can for sure play good tennis, but I think when it comes down to the crunch you just have that bit of a doubt maybe, because you are not quite that comfortable with that racquet. But we’ll see what happens. It’s going to be a big test for him.”…

The Australian Open was released early Friday in Melbourne. Roger Federer and Andy Murray ended up on opposite sides of the draw, while Serena and Venus found themselves slated for a semifinal meeting.

No. 28 seed Somdev Devvarman and Prakash Amritraj square off in an all-Indian battle, and veterans attempting returns from injury or just another taste of the main draw after fallen-off results include Dominik “The Dominator” Hrbaty, Germany’s Florian Mayer, Canadian Frank Dancevic, and Belgian Xavier “X-Man” Malisse.

Sean Randall previews the 2009 ATP tennis season and predicts Roger Federer will return to the No. 1 ranking.

Andy Murray started the season out as strong as possible with a second straight victory defeating Andy Roddick for the title in Qatar.

Gael Monfils gets his first career win over World No. 1 Rafael Nadal. Monfils now meets Andy Roddick in the Doha semifinals, while Roger Federer and Andy Murray lock up in the other semifinal.

After digging around, this really has been a rather quiet, holiday off-season in the tennis world.

I tried to determine the toughest draws conquered at the respective events since the start of the 1988 season. The Australian Open did not have 1 draw that jumped out at me. The U.S. Open had several draws that stood out as quite difficult for the champion to navigate (1992, 1994, 1998, 2002). At any rate, these are the 4 draws I selected. Tell me and the rest of the Tennis-x readers what other draws were exceptionally deep and rough.

After an early-round loss at the Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells, Andy Roddick met with the press and briefly spoke about the U.S. Davis Cup team’s upcoming quarterfinal meeting with France in April.

Well, Novak Djokovic really put a dent into Roger Federer’s plans for continued world domination in tennis.