JOE LYNCH: This is Gavin Hopper who coaches Mark Philippoussis who is the number 3 seed here, and also works with Amanda Coetzer who is presently number 5 in the WTA tour rankings. He's also worked with numerous pros, he's an expert for Tennis magazine in fitness and he's here to answer your questions.

QUESTION: Gavin, there are some people that say the influence of players like Mark on the game is kind of a double-edged sword because he has such a powerful serve. What do you guys think about that?

HOPPER: I think you're right. I think there is. I mean, I'm first to admit that I sit out there and watch men's doubles and I find that a fairly boring match. People say there's a few good rallies here and there, but it's service dominated and when I'm coaching the best server in the game, obviously I like to have a server's dominated game. However I also see that I coach Amanda Coetzer, who is at the other end of the spectrum, if you like to say. She has to put the ball back in 30 times every rally to win a point. So I'm looking at both ends of the spectrum here. You're right, it is a double-edged sword. I feel that Mark, himself, his personality and the explosiveness of his game, he's a great benefit to tennis. However, I have seen times during this year that he's untouchable on the court and therefore the tennis is not tennis any more, it's just one-hit shots and no one can touch him in the world. If he ever gets that together, that could hurt tennis a little bit, because he serves it, you can't touch his serve, when he played Corretja in the final of Munich back in April, April or May, and his last set, his final set against Corretja, his serve was virtually untouchable and out of the last 12 points I think he might have served 10 aces and two touched balls and Corretja just put his racquet down and said, "I can't -- what could I do? I can't see his serve. I can't touch it." So it is, and I understand that. I also look at it and you look at the top 15 rankings, though, I would think there's service dominated guys, there's probably four guys in the top 15. So everyone's got a good serve, because everyone is improving technically their serve, but I think if you look at it, there is far more ground stroke dominated guys than service dominated guys.

QUESTION: Do you want to make sure that he doesn't rely so much on that big serve? Like it's interesting to note that in the team competition, when he hit that record serve, he didn't win that match, did he?

HOPPER: No, it was a pretty tight march, 7-6 in the third to Costa.

QUESTION: And again in the French Open, against Kafelnikov. Kafelnikov said, "Well he was just relying on that, but it was so windy, it wasn't working for him and I won."

HOPPER: During the past six months where he's had his best results, let's say, I have noticed that at various times there has been a reliance on that serve. I've got full faith that his game is a total game and I think everyone understands that. He also -- I can't go back and say to him, I want you to play like Amanda Coetzer plays and fight for every point and scramble every point and get the ball back. That's not the way he operates. That's not the way I expect him to play. That's not the way he's going to take his game to the next level. However, at times, and it may be youth, or it may be conditions like a windy day, he can -- that timing may slightly be off and sometimes he doesn't revert to just scrambling points, he wants to keep trying, because he's got this belief in himself. And against Kafelnikov at the French Open was a classic case. We all know the French Open was a winable tournament for anyone and he was playing well at the time, a very, very windy day, the occasion on center court, just went out there and just tried to hit the ball so hard and Kafelnikov only had to put two balls back in the court and it was a disappointing effort, sure. But I've also seen him go out there and he's won three tournaments this year on three different surfaces and play the tennis he believes he can play all the time.

QUESTION: Do you think that the equipment is now too advanced? Do you think it should take a step back in the racquet technology?

HOPPER: I'm old enough to grow up with wooden racquets, I suppose you know. Look, I'm not sure whether I am an opponent, for or against that whole technology change. I see that the classic case is most people can serve big with a wooden racquet anyhow, as Mark makes a very good point in a number interviews. He says, "If I was serving well, if someone was using a wooden racquet or a smaller headed racquet, no one is going to return the ball." Whereas, what it's given at least in today's tennis the ability of a player to make returns. So I don't think we can stop the technology rising over the years, but I think that we can -- the games will adjust themselves. I think once you find them -- I mean, I've been nine years out here and I'm finding it an incredible improvement in athletic performance. My background is in both tennis and fitness, so having tried to tie both of them together I'd say it's been a fantastic improvement over the past 8 or 9 years, especially in men's tennis and I think, hopefully, I've helped change that in the women's tennis, taking Amanda Coetzer to a different level of fitness, that in the next six or seven years you'll see the same sort of improvement in the women's game athletically. If you're not a great athlete these days you can't compete in men's tennis and I think you probably could previously purely because of your skill level. I really don't think that's possible these days.

QUESTION: Will you talk a little bit about that in terms of you mentioned the huge contrast in styles between your two clients there.

HOPPER: Yes.

QUESTION: How is it as a coach? I mean how do you kind of go between working with Mark and working with Amanda? Are there things that are in common between them, or is it totally different?

HOPPER: I suppose one of the things people -- when they talk about me as a coach on a league level, a criticism that can be made, or a question that can be put over my head is that I didn't play at that level and I'm always the one to say, "Yes, I can't walk into a U.S. Open final and know what it feels like." On the other side of the coin, I have no preconceived ideas how someone should exactly hit the ball, except that we try to get that person that I'm working with as a better player. If I can't improve at any point in time when I'm coaching someone, that particular person, I therefore have to sit down and say, "Well, look, we're not going anywhere." I've been fortunate over the years. We've had good success with the people I've worked with, but at this point in time I have one player who is potentially the number one player in the world, who is a high maintenance sort of person because he's 20 and we've got to keep him on track, but he's low intensity practice wise. He needs no more than an hour on the court, or an hour, perhaps two hours a day maximum. I have another person who is very low maintenance, who really looks after herself very well, but needs four hours on the court every day to hit balls and groove herself. The common denominator that I look for in that whole equation when I'm trying to coach people, two people from, for sure, different ends of the spectrum and different sexes, which you have to take into account when you're training someone on a physical basis, is that I want that person to improve, technically, physically and mentally; three areas that are the key areas. Now, if you as a coach address each one of those areas and say what the needs of the person is, you'll always come up with a formula right for that particular person. I don't need to work any technical work with Mark Philippoussis. I think anyone sitting here can go out and coach Mark Philippoussis on a technical basis. The guy hits the ball as well as anyone in the world, but he needs -- you know, we obviously need other things to go into the equation rather than just being a technical coach. Amanda Coetzer, three years ago now, we made a decision to reconstruct her game to give her a bit more power. She had to run with the whole faith that was going to work. She was 15 to 20 in the world and we had to say -- she had to believe in what I was saying to her that two years down the track this will all pay off. That's a hard thing for a pro to actually look at that and say maybe two years down the track it will pay off. Now she's sitting 5 in the world and having a great year. That's all, in retrospect, to say that it works. But so a player has to have that faith in what you're doing in the long term plan.

QUESTION: Gavin, do you think that the U.S. Open is the slam that Philippoussis will make a breakthrough in and do you think it could be this year?

HOPPER: I thought he could win the French, to be honest. I don't think he can win Wimbeldon at this stage. He's got a couple of areas of his game still got to improve a little bit better. Even though everyone knows he's got a great serve, I don't think he's capable of winning Wimbeldon tomorrow. I think that may come. But I think hard court will probably be his best chance and that will be the Australian Open or the U.S. Open. That's the first question. The second one was can he do it this year. He knows and I know he's capable of winning any tournament and that's for sure, that's not -- I don't think we're deceiving anyone in saying that, or we're just estimating above his ability. He can win every tournament he walks into because he's good enough to. However, he's yet to prove himself over two weeks and that is -- we all know that's a big, big jump from winning week-to-week tournaments and then year in year out proving yourself at Grand Slam level, which I would think your career is based -- I mean, I would think for a tennis player this way. I talked to someone like Amanda who I coached for three years, your career is based on how many tournaments you win and how your performances in Grand Slams go. She's had -- for the last two years, she's had an outstanding record in Grand Slams, semifinals and quarterfinals and pretty well everywhere except Wimbeldon. Now, Mark has yet to pass the fourth round in any Grand Slam. I would think if we can get passed the fourth round, he's an incredibly dangerous player at the U.S. Open. To get him through that first week is, for me, the little tough part. Just making sure on the day that he perhaps has a little down match, either mentally or physically down, that he gets through it somehow. Like he's done this year. If he gets a little sniff of a victory, he could be fairly hard to stop if we can get him into the Monday of the second week. If we can get him into September...