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No real surprises here. Mark Philippoussis, 33, has failed to make any sort of impression at a Challenger event in Texas, losing 6-4, 6-4 to Michael Yani. The Poo is a 2 time Grand Slam runner up and while he always had an immense serve he was fairly useless if he wasn’t on a hot streak. Mark has also had more knee problems than Rafael Nadal, having had 6 knee surgeries to date.
Any normal person who was 33, had undergone 6 knee surgeries, and had never really shown any inclination to work as hard as necessary to really maximise his potential, would have stayed retired rather than make another run at the ATP. Even the body of Lleyton Hewitt can only take so much and Hewitt has shown more dedication to his physical conditioning in a week than The Scud has shown over the course of his career. Hewitt has only had one surgery on each hip. Apparently Mark has lost 5kg to reduce the strain on his knees. The Scud is kidding himself if he thinks his knee will hold up against today’s top players, just ask Nadal.
But there is more happening here than the reigniting of that competitive flame. Mark is broke, lost his home, has dated an array of famous women (and got a lot of flack for his treatment of Delta Goodrem when she was recovering from cancer) and is now engaged to Jennifer Esposito and still has no money to pay his bills.
The story of Mark Philippoussis has always been a sad one and it doesn’t look set to improve any time soon.
Try as I might I will never be able to pick a top ten that pleases everyone.
