The Serbians aren’t shy about making audacious statements, even if it appears that they are speaking out of turn. Take Aussie Open titlist Novak Djokovic and his childhood friend Ana Ivanovic. One is a goofy impersonator, the other as appealing as a bowl of vanilla ice cream with splash of mouth-watering chocolate fudge on top. Both have their eyes on the big prize and aren’t shy about letting the other elite players find out.

The 20-year-old Ivanovic has grabbed the world No. 2 ranking and no longer feels that she’s too immature to make a serious charge at No. 1. Sharapova may have bested her in the Aussie Open final, but Ivanovic knows that she’s very close to hitting her top form.

“Obviously, being second in the world, that’s as close as you can get,” Ivanovic said. “I learned in Australia that I have a few things to improve, but it’s possible now and I believe in it. Everything I do is to achieve my goal of becoming No. 1. This year will be interesting. So many girls are playing better and it will be tough for [No. 1] Justine [Henin] to remain in that position. It’s going to be a huge competition.”

Tennis is to some degree a cyclical sport, but players must work hard not to be thrown out of the elite orbit. Henin utterly dominated the second half of ‘07, losing only one match from late May on. But now, after Sharapova stomped her in Australia, there is thought permeating the locker room that the super-creative Belgian is ripe for a fall. “It can’t last forever,” Svetlana Kuznetsova said.

Ivanovic feels much the same way. Like Sharapova, when she’s in a great mood, the Serb’s bright smile and personality can captivate a room similar to that of a beaming Angelina Jolie strolling down the red carpet. Even when she’s talking about emotionally trying losses, like her 7-5, 6-3 defeat to Sharapova in Melbourne, the Serbian is engaging. You can literally feel her pain when she discusses what went wrong in Melbourne.

“That game at 5-4, I made the wrong shot with a drop shot,” said Ivanovic, who also reached the ‘07 French final and ‘07 Wimbledon semis. “I thought it was great idea, but it did not turn out. I had huge opportunity and I missed it. I was dreaming about that shot for a couple of days. It stung.”

If Ivanovic wants to achieve No. 1, she will likely have to win a Grand Slam title. But that’s not her dream. She’d rather bring home a gold medal to tiny Serbia. “It would be amazing,” she said. “I would rather take a gold medal over the Slam this year because its only once every four years and there are so few opportunities.”

While the tall brunette would certainly look good carrying the Serbian flag in the ceremonies, she’d rather take a pass and let her good friend and countryman, the zany Djokovic, lead the procession “He’s the showman,” Ivanovic said. “But I really hope he’ll just carry it and not make any jokes. But he might take his shirt off. I’d love to do it, but he’ll put his hand up first.”

Djokovic had a big smile on his face when he heard that Ivanovic would support him carrying the flag, responding playfully, “And she would win the medal, right?”

Like his stand-up parents, there’s not a shy bone in Djokovic’s body. He’s not afraid to call anyone out and has backed up claims of being the one to watch, reaching the ‘07 French and Wimbledon semis, the U.S. Open final and then out-legging Federer and Jo-Wilifried Tsonga for the Aussie title. He’s solid, creative and relentless. He’s technically sound in every area and is willing to hit out when necessary.

“The great thing about Novak is he doesn’t give up any ground on the baseline,” Andy Roddick said. “You never feel like he’s over-swinging — he’s probably the best in the world at changing directions. You can fire a ball into him, and he’s able to put an easy swing on it and change directions. He makes it look easy. He rarely hits two or three balls to the same spot. He’s able to move the ball around.”

Djokovic may not have an easy name to read, but it’s easy to pronounce and he’s not shy of the cameras. If he can cross over as an international star a la Federer, the sport will be in good shape. In March, he went on the Jay Leno show, certainly becoming the first Serbian male player to enter the U.S. late-night TV big tent. He understands his potential relevance in marketing the sport.

“It was fantastic experience for me, and it was important as a pro to be presented to the American people, the ones who don’t follow tennis.”

While Djokovic’s run towards the top of the chart has been impressive, it’s difficult to tell whether he will be able to back it up week in, week out. He’s still young and prone to getting worn down. But while his coach, Marian Vajda, wouldn’t predict a year-end No. 1 ranking, he said it’s clear that his man is ready to stand up to Fed and Nadal. “He’s the one,” Vajda said.

And Novak himself suggests he might soon be tugging on Federer’s cape.

“He’s No. 1 in the world for a long time, and Rafa is now closer than ever, so he feels it.” Djokovic said prior to Indian Wells. “Roger hasn’t won a tournament still this year. You don’t have only two players now. You have three, four, five. More and more players are believing that they win against Roger ... So it’s going to be quite interesting to see what’s at the end of the year.”

Just two years ago, Amelie Mauresmo stepped on her choking demons and had a career year, winning the Aussie Open and Wimbledon. But the 28-year-old’s game has sputtered badly and she’s contemplated retirement. The former No. 1 says she’ll keep hacking away, but will not commit to years more of play.

“I have a game where I can choose between different things, whether I stay back, come in or do a little bit of everything,” she said. “[Now] I’m 70 percent of the time making the wrong choice. I have to think about it, because it’s not coming instinctively anymore, not until I have some more confidence. [Tennis] would be more enjoyable if the work were paying off, but it’s difficult when the confidence is not there.”

Santa Monica’s Michael Joyce’s journeyman career was once the subject of long essay by famous author David Foster Wallace, the author of Infinite Jest. But no one is laughing at Joyce’s coaching. The congenial grinder has helped coach Sharapova to her last two Slam titles.

“He’s helped tremendously,” Sharapova said. “He was a player and was in match situations. He knows that you’re not going to play perfectly every day. He knows when conditions change, adjusting is important. It’s the little things and we’ve worked on other things repeatedly. But as a friend he’s just done an incredible job. He knows what you’re feeling inside and what you’re going through in certain situations.”

When Jimmy Connors came out of his self-imposed exile to coach Roddick, it came at the lowest point of Andy’s career — after he had been twisted around by Andy Murray at the’06 Wimbledon.

When Connors abandoned ship in February, Roddick had, for the first time since ‘03, won two titles within three weeks. It was a curious time for Jimbo to exit.

Connors recalled: “When Andy stepped on court — from the first minute — I never saw anything like it. It reminded me of me. I said, ‘Geez, if I could bring that out of him a little more ... then what he has to offer and bring to the game is unlimited.”

But Connors patience had limits. Jimmy liked what he first saw in Roddick — a fiery, down-and-dirty type who lives by a win-at-all-costs attitude. But perhaps Connors failed to take a close look at Roddick’s game and examine what he could actually change, rather than what he hoped to change.

Connors didn’t really need to tell him to go out there with a kick-ass attitude. What he needed was Connors’ brilliant two-handed backhand, an aggressive and accurate return of serve, and more speed. Connors at best had a mediocre serve, so maybe he figured that with his heater, Roddick could dominate and if he could tune-up Andy’s backhand and get him to play further inside the court, that he could coax another Slam title out of him.

Maybe Connors had not seen Roddick much before he signed up. But he’s watched him a ton since and has likely concluded that, although he managed to convince him to loosen up his stiff backhand and to close more points out at net, that the 26-year-old is not going to get any faster going side to side; he cannot play inside the baseline, because he needs a big windup to produce all his pace; and he’ll never have great instincts at the net, although he’s far better up there than he was four years ago.

Connors was at the ‘08 Aussie Open, where he watched Roddick be completely outplayed from the baseline by Philip Kohlschreiber. Jimmy fled the site quickly, maybe thinking that he had done all he could with Andy and that he’d never experience the joy of watching his stead upset Fed for a Slam title.

Roddick won five titles under Connors in 20 months. He reached one Slam final, but never beat Fed. Connors simply didn’t want to stick it out, perhaps because he didn’t want to be associated with a mid-career player who may never reach No. 1 again, or maybe because he didn’t want to endure all that travel.

“Communication is tough,” Roddick said. “When the match isn’t on TV and you try to explain where your head is at. We did the mentor role as well as you can from a distance, but when I’m going from Australia to Austria to California to Memphis to Dubai, it becomes difficult. It was a matter of logistics as much as anything.”

Now Roddick will stick with his long-time duo: his brother and coach, John, and his trainer Doug Spreen.

“We made it work as well as it could for a part-time gig, but that just became tough when you have the ins and outs of the days,” Rodddick said. “I guess Jimmy didn’t feel like we were getting out of it what we needed to. It was completely amicable. It ended about as well as something like that can. It wasn’t really my call. It was just tough. He was nice enough to kind of come out of retirement and off the golf course and give me a jump-start at the lowest point of my career. That was huge.”

Many tennis parents prefer to stay in the background when delivering bold quotes about their kid (no, not Richard and Oracene Williams), but not Dijana Djokovic, who after her darling son Novak won the Aussie Open, delivered the strongest line of the year in reference to Fed. “As you say, the king is dead. Long live the king!”

The French Tennis Federation wanted Wimbledon finalist Marion Bartoli to play Fed Cup and the Olympics. Not without her dad and coach, Walter, she wouldn’t, igniting a fiery controversy that saw a couple of her fellow players take big cuts at her arrangement.

Marion says that her dad has offered to back away at times, but she definitively does not want him to do that. She’s an unusual 23-year-old in that respect, failing to even put a nick in the proverbial umbilical cord, but she revels in their unique bond.

She feels that her dad was once misunderstood, but not any more. “Since the day I made the final of a Grand Slam, it’s changed. I’m not a great athlete. People didn’t think I could be a top-10 player and now I’m there and he gives me the harder preparation I need.”

It’s been a long time since America’s top male could claim that he dominated two weeks of tennis. But with his title runs in San Jose and Dubai, Andy Roddick put himself prominently back on the tennis map, even if he was upset at Indian Wells by Tommy Haas.

No. 6 Roddick stated in San Jose that he was ready to go hunting big scalps in Dubai and although he was in fine form then, besting Radek Stepanek in the final, no one could have predicted a title run in Fed’s adopted home town of Dubai. But A-Rod served incredibly well (not an automatic for the tour’s most-feared server), volleyed efficiently, kept his forehand deep and moved his backhand around competently. He brushed off world No. 2 Rafael Nadal, No. 3 Novak Djokovic and, in the final, the threatening lefty Spaniard Feliciano Lopez.

During the week, Roddick broke the news that his head coach, Jimmy Connors, had resigned. But instead of moping, he put the lessons that Connors, his brother and trainer had taught him. He played to his strengths and in a two out of three set match, if Roddick is clicking, he’s tough to expose. Now he has to show he can do that again in a major, where his warts become more apparent.

“The only thing that bothers me is that sometimes I get presented as not a very good player,” said Roddick. “I can play sometimes ...There’s not much I’m not happy with as far as this week goes. I’ve been playing the right way...Sometimes I tell people that I’m the best bad player of all time.”

Roddick was able to wave off the Haas loss, because he’s confident that his ball-striking ability is at an all-time high and the loss was primarily due to his failure to take care of few key opportunities.

He wants to be part of the main conversation, which for the most part, includes Federer, Nadal and Djokovic, winners of the last 12 Slam titles. Roddick,  has only one Slam, the ‘03 U.S. Open,

“I know I have some work to get back to that top echelon, but I [just] beat two of the guys last week and feel like it’s a possibility.”

Quick, name the five teens who’re in the WTA’s top 40: Nicole Vaidisova, Agnes Szavay, Agnieszka Radwanska , Victoria Azarenka and Dominica Cibulkova. What do they have in common? They’re all from Eastern Europe (Czech Rep., Hungary, Poland, Belarus and the Slovak Republic).

How may U.S. girl teens are in the WTA top 100? None. Amazingly, the U.S., whose honor rolls include King, Evert and Austin, has only produced one impact player (top 10 or higher) in the last decade, Serena Williams, who is now 25. While there are a few teens out there with noticeable talent (i.e. Asia Muhammed, Coco Vandeweghe and Madison Brengle), there is no clear top-5 player on the horizon and that’s a dreary prospect for a country that demands Slam champs.

While France hasn’t produced a French Open champion since Yannick Noah 25 years ago, the nation has tremendous depth, led by the energetic Aussie Open finalist Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Wimbledon semifinalist Richard Gasquet, top-15 player Paul-Henri Mathieu, Wimbledon finalist Marion Bartoli, two time Slam champ Amelie Mauresmo and top-20 player Tatiana Golovin. France has 10 women in the top 100, as many as the U.S., but unlike America, has a slew of promising youngsters. There are 14 French men in the top 100, compared to eight Americans. Now all France needs is to have one of their ‘ready-to-breakout’ players make Noah proud in Paris.

The high-achieving nation that brought you Hoad, Laver, Newk, Rosewall, Court, Emerson, Goolagong, Rafter and Cash is now down to a declining Lleyton Hewitt, who hasn’t won a Slam in six years, and a small phalanx of declining vets and not-so-promising youngsters. Australia has just two women in the top 100 and is hoping that salt-of-the-earth Casey Dellacqua continues to show the talent that she flashed at the Aussie Open. Down Under folks are also praying that Aussie Open junior titlist Bernard Tomic, only 16, pans out.

Identical twins Bob and Mike Bryan, have ruled the dubs universe for three years now. Now the Bryans are being chased by two other brotherly look-a-likes, Sanchai and Sonchat Ratiwatana of Thailand. The gritty Ukranian sisters, Alona and Kateryna Bondarenko, won their first Slam at the Aussie Open. Whoever says the family that plays together can’t win together? Well, that’s occasionally the case with the battling Bondarenkos. “Last year we were playing singles, Kata plays singles and me play singles and we fight sometimes,” Alona Bondarenko said. “But now we start to listen to each other more.

Credit the Bondarenko sisters for making strides in their singles games, but what’s happened to the Safins? Two-time Slam champ Marat is in a freefall, while his little sister, Dinara, has never lived up to her top-10 potential. Neither of the Bryans plays singles, nor do the Ratiwatanas. Zimbabwe’s Cara Black once competed in singles alongside her brothers Bryon and Wayne, but now she’s a pure (and excellent) doubles specialist. Even Alona Bondarenko, who reached No. 21 in singles, is finding that dubs can do damage to her singles.

Madison Square Garden has been home to many “firsts” this year. Uno became the first beagle ever to be named “Best in Show” at the Westminster Dog Show and the first steroid testing on bulls took place at the Professional Bull Riders’ Versus Invitational.

But on the night of Monday, March 10, there were multiple. It was the first time:

• A tennis event sold out the Garden in this century

• The three winningest men’s Grand Slam singles champions — Pete Sampras (14), Roy Emerson (12), and Roger Federer (12) — were on court together

• Former champ and event promoter Ivan Lendl, who holds the men’s record for most Grand Slam singles finals (19) made a public appearance at a tennis event.

And, most importantly, it was the first time that Pete Sampras and Roger Federer faced off on American soil.

Federer prevailed 6-3, 6-7(4), 7-6(6) in the two-hour, 14-minute exhibition called The NetJets Showdown. It was the third exo for the reputed best players ever, and the Swiss proved his edge by bringing the series to 3-1 in his favor. Previous matchups were held in Asia in the fall of ‘07.

But it was close and many of those in attendance wondered that if the 36-year-old Sampras decided to attempt a comeback, whether the 14-time Grand Slam champion could will his older but still-capable body back into the top-10. Sampras has consistently squashed the hopes of his fans in regard to a return to the ATP Tour, but it’s very clear that he can still play — and very well, even against a man who may soon be called the world’s best under intense pressure.

Moreover, the sold-out crowd and strong TV audience made one thing very clear: even if Sampras is well past his prime, the tennis universe is becoming addicted to their rivalry — exhibition or not.

It’s arguably the most talked-about matchup in the sport today, despite high-profile rivalries between Federer and Nadal, Federer and Novak Djokovic, or the Williams sisters vs. Henin, et al.

In fact, at the Garden, Sampras won one more point than Federer (109 to 108), and registered a higher first-serve percentage (75 to 67 percent). Surprisingly, Federer out-aced his elder 19 to 13, with four coming in the opening game of the third set. Sampras couldn’t touch four consecutive serves. The Swiss, who lacked match play due to a bout of mononucleosis early this season and somewhat surprising losses to Djokovic (the Aussie Open) and Andy Murray (Dubai), was razor-sharp in the final set.

But Sampras, who was backed all night by the home crowd’s chants of “Let’s go, Pete!,” has long known how to turn it on under pressure. The third-set tiebreak made for a satisfying evening by all accounts, but one fan was certain from the start that Federer would prevail:

“Federer is the best that ever played the game,” said former mayor David Dinkins. “I admire Pete for coming out.”

Sampras, who maintains he is still competitive but not match-tough, admitted, “I pushed as hard as I could tonight. That is why he is the best player in the world. He can come with serves and passes that are incredible. Sure I am a little disappointed — I had the match on my racquet. It was a great night for tennis. It was a great night for me personally to play in front of 19,000 people in New York. Roger is a good sport about it. He doesn’t have a lot to gain from these matches: He makes a little money and flies around in a private jet.”

“But I have to take you with me,” added Federer with a smile, echoing the prize’s “catch” that the on-court speaker had noted when presenting the winner with his free flight to the West Coast on a Marquis Jet.

Federer — who is tied with Emerson for 12 Grand Slam titles, just two shy of tying his hero’s record of 14 victories — was also full of admiration for Sampras.

“It’s a dream come true to play my childhood hero here,” Federer said. “The fact that it was sold out, to me, shows a lot of respect for the game.”

So, will they play again?

“These exhibitions are up to Roger,” Sampras said. “I’m game to play him. Roger has more important things to worry about. For me, I’m retired. I play every couple of months. The call comes to play Roger and I’m excited about it. It’s his call.”

There is talk about another showdown in London next year, but organizers said they hope to stage another match in New York.

The Big Apple wants one, as evidenced by the electrifying atmosphere inside the Garden. The spirited crowd hollered cheers from the first point and jumped to its feet to applaud winners. They danced and sang along to “Johnny B. Goode” and “Respect” on changeovers while cameras projected their images on the scoreboard. Tiger Woods glanced at himself on the screen, but kept a straight face, while Sampras’ actress wife, Bridget, laughed in glee, chewing her gum and looking relaxed while enjoying the festivities. Even commuters, who usually rush out of basketball and hockey games to catch their trains at Penn Station next door, stayed put until the final point was over. Some reminisced over the classic matches hosted at the Garden when the men’s and women’s year-end championships were hunkered down in NYC, while others were too young to remember the good old days when McEnroe, Connors, Evert and Navratilova went to war above Penn Station.

But even though the aging Garden isn’t exactly a spanking new 21st Century Sports megaplex that is unlikely to host another huge weeklong tournament, for one night in March, tennis rocked the rooftop once again.

While the crowd gave props to the underdog all night, Federer called the crowd fair and certainly enjoyed his time there.

“I don’t think winning and losing was really the issue tonight,” he said. “I think we both tried to do our best and have a fun night; that I won wasn’t even a bonus. I think the winner was tennis. Tennis is back at the Garden. It was a sellout crowd. This is sort of what mattered to us. The result wasn’t that important. We tried to make it a good match and it turned into a fantastic thriller.” — Liza Horan

Federer has won his last 41 matches against American men. His last loss to a U.S. player came against Andy Roddick in Montreal in ‘03. He’s now 34-1 against the eight Americans currently ranked inside the top 100.