federer presser miami 11Patrick Mouratoglou is a world-renowned tennis coach who has worked with Marcos Baghdatis and Aravane Rezai. His French tennis academy is considered one of the top in the world. He is a frequent contributor to Busted Racquet.

Even if he denies it in front of the press, even if he refuses to talk about a changing of the guard, Roger Federer can't get away from it now: His game is slipping, fast. This isn't to attack his credentials or past but to try and approach the situation with a sober mind, which Federer doesn't want to seem to do. He's still good enough to reach at least the semifinals of the events he's entering but not to put away other top players like Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. What's the problem?

His serve doesn't hurt like it used to. Whereas it was a huge weapon for him, this shot isn't decisive anymore and that's why he now has to play many rallies from the baseline. So Federer is giving up easy points on his service games and can't put on the usual pressure

IMG_4115_2_2Patrick Mouratoglou (right) is a world-renowned tennis coach who has worked with Marcos Baghdatis and Aravane Rezai. His French tennis academy is considered one of the top in the world. He is a frequent contributor to Busted Racquet.

The first Masters 1000 of the season began this week in California. The Grand Slams may be the biggest showcase for the top players, but tournaments like Indian Wells can tell us a lot about them as well.

Rafael Nadal -- He's the indisputable No. 1 in the world and is dominating his sport like few could ever boast. He won three of the last four Grand Slams and when he's not winning it's often due to an injury. Rafa always gives 100 percent and never plays with the brakes on.

Right now, he's most impressive because for every major event he succeeds in finding technical and tactical answers in order to win. For example, long rallies, outstanding defense and topspin help him win the French Open. A better serve, shorter points and more flat shots earned him a US Open title. He believes in the culture of winning.

In my opinion, Rafa is the player with the strongest mind in tennis history. But his body may betray him. It's both his strength and his weakness because he's constantly made it suffer by always asking it more and more. Indian Wells is his first tournament since the Australian Open. Can he stay healthy?

Novak Djokovic -- In the past eight months he's taken his game to new heights. He was a a finalist at the US Open, hoisted the Davis Cup (where he was amazing at every level by winning by playing great despite the huge pressure of a whole country on his shoulders) won the Australian Open and then capped it off in Dubai by crushing Roger Federer in the final. It's no stretch to say he could be the next No. 1. There is still that little matter of Mr. Nadal though, so the time isn't coming quite yet. Indian Wells will tell us where he stands now and it'll be thrilling to see those two players in the battle. Djokovic is getting closer to Nadal on the game level but he'll have to be more efficient in order to win on these hard courts.

Roger Federer -- Roger, we have a problem. Even if it's tough to admit for a champion of this caliber, and even if we want to still see him at his best level, he has clearly on his downswing. It's enough to look objectively at his last results to be convinced. Beyond his recent lack of efficient play, his whole game is lacking consistency. During his matches, he can display the best and then the worst and seems to suffer from big focusing issues. He could soon lose his No. 2 ranking to Djokovic and that could hurt his confidence. Whether he can hold off the Serb is why Indian Wells and Miami will be of great interest.

Renowned tennis coach Patrick Mouratoglou breaks down Novak Djokovic's game and explores whether or not the Australian Open champion can surpass Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer to reach No. 1 in the rankings.

A champion has to believe in his own greatness. That never seemed to be a problem for Novak Djokovic, who has long been known as someone who may have been too confident in his abilities. But over the past few months, from his win over Roger Federer at the US Open to his Davis Cup-saving victory against Gael Monfils to the win at the Australian Open, he's started to truly buy into his success. He's gained a feeling that nothing bad can happen to him. Djokovic is now more sure than ever sure of his ability to succeed and to reach his goals. As I'm used to telling my players: confidence comes only from winning. Novak Djokovic is the perfect example. What makes him so good?

Outstanding fitness

Djokovic is physically the ideal tennis player. Tall and slender, he has the height to serve

The classic Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal final has been replaced by what might become one of the future classics of the Grand Slams finals: Andy Murray-Novak Djokovic. Both being ambitious, 23-year-olds, they're among the players who never got discouraged by the outstanding domination of Roger and Rafa. Yes, sometimes it was getting tough on them. They've suffered and even got depressed, like in 2010 when Murray failed in Australia, the second time that had happened in a Grand Slam final against Federer. But they've been improving and improving again. They're still on the rise. They know they're able to make their way here despite the dominance of the sport's two giants.

This final is very open. If Murray happens to win it, he'd finally win his first major title. This victory could set him free and help him to make his career enter a new dimension. The Scotsman owns a very unique talent but he's still playing in the shadow of Rafa and Fed. This extra confidence given by this first title

A Grand Slam final without Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal is a pretty rare event. Tennis people and the press were quick to jump on this fact and predicted a new era in tennis as a result, but I think they were quick to jump to conclusions. Like Chris, I believe it's too soon to make that call.

Certainly, Federer has had a huge letdown since the 2009 U.S. Open. We know it and we have, many times, analyzed it. He only won one of the last six Grand Slams and hasn't been in any of the last four finals. For Roger, we're talking about really bad stats. Yet it's undeniable that, since last summer, he showed a new desire and a rising game level. He had great results at the end of 2010, especially winning the Masters Cup. But it wasn't a long enough run of success to determine whether he'd be able to carry it through to Melbourne.

He couldn't. The trademark of the Swiss has always been the ability to win when his back was up against the wall, but that's now been put in doubt. The loss to

As was the case at Wimbledon, the buzz at this Grand Slam is about a marathon match. Last summer it was John Isner-Nicolas Mahut. In Melbourne it's the epic battle between Francesca Schiavone and Svetlana Kuznetsova. Beyond the broken records, that match was everything we love about tennis and sports in general. We had two champions, already crowned in a Grand Slam, giving us sporting emotion, bravery, beauty and lessons that we can apply to life. What else could be better?

It didn't start out that beautiful though. The first two sets were played poorly. Both players looked unable to play good tennis, perhaps because of two reasons. First, they were tentative with each other, maybe because of the mental and physical fatigue accumulated from their previous matches. That causes tension. Legs don't move correctly, adjustments are sloppy, the timing is wrong and there's not enough energy there to make up for all of this. Let's not forget that Schiavone won 6-4 in the third against Parra

Stan Wawrinka was nice enough to give me some tickets on Friday night so I could watch his match against Gaël Monfils at Rod Laver Arena. I wasn't disappointed at all by the show.

The intensity of the first set was a rarity. Both players went for rallies, with diagonals on backhands, forehands played by turning around the backhand and some down-the-line acceleration when needed. But it was their defending and counter-punching abilities that often allowed them to push the points to very long and high-level rallies. Each player had his moment in the set where you thought they'd take it. Both went through periods of high confidence where the play was effortless, and also moments of calm and clear-headedness, which isn't as easy as it sounds for them. It was an efficient mixture that allowed both to win points.

But both players also went through tough moments, where hurry came instead of calm. They also made some bad choices and hit fewer first serves in as the set progressed. It left the

Renowned tennis coach Patrick Mouratoglou is in Melbourne for the Australian Open and will post his unique take on the game for Busted Racquet.

Though the upsets have stayed away, we've been treated to some great matches thus far at the Australian Open. Some of the early round highlights:

-- In the women's draw, the match between Roberta Vinci and the veteran Alicia Molik, which was not promising at first glance, was an epic battle that ended in an exciting fashion. The Australian, Molik, ended by winning 8-6 in the third after having to rally from down a break at 3-5. At 30 years old and after a forced break from tennis due to an infection of the inner ear, she showed once more that the Australian fighting spirit isn't just a myth. It's a real part of their sporting culture. Not that Vinci didn't fight either, though. The two players delivered the highest quality tennis during the last two sets. Both had been going to net a lot and then tried to change the pace and attack in order to