Dear fans
 
As you can imagine the beginning of this season has been rather tough for me. 2007 ended with an illness which cost me a lot of energy. I was unable to play at the beginning of January. I was still taking antibiotics five days before the Australian Open, making a recovery in time for the tournament impossible. During the time in Melbourne I felt slow and kept looking for possible reasons for that – without finding an answer.
 
Some time later, during my holidays in Switzerland, I became severely ill again. I went to the hospital straight away to get further tests done. And it was at this time that they found out what was bothering me all along: mononucleosis. I had had it for six weeks already, meaning it would normally be over.
 
It was relieving to finally know why I had felt weak in Australia and also later on during my holidays. So the good news really is to be certain of what has occurred. The bad news is that I have quite some catching up to do in terms of fitness as I am not in the physical state that I would normally be in at this time of the year.
 
I have known for 10 days now that the illness is over. I have been back to exercising at maximum level since then, before that it had only been moderate. Unfortunately that meant that I only had about three days of intense training before Dubai.
The match I played against Andy Murray in Dubai was a good one – taking into consideration the circumstances. My expectations weren’t all too high, it was a tough draw and Andy certainly played an excellent match.
 
Pierre Paganini, my physical coach, had joined me in Dubai for three days to assist me with some serious training sessions. That helped a lot and I must say that I already feel strong again. I will definitely need more training in Indian Wells after the match against Pete Sampras in New York. After that, Pierre Paganini will meet up with me again in Miami for another three days of hard work. The main issue now is to get 100% fit and make up for all the training I missed out on.
 
I will be traveling to New York this weekend and I am really looking forward to the match against Pete. The event has been sold out for quite some time already. We will be competing in front of a crowd of 19’000 - what an atmosphere!
 
Thank you for all your continued support and see you all soon,
 
Roger