KEY POINTS:
Juan Carlos Ferrero looked absolutely distraught after his defeat by Philipp Kohlschreiber in last year's Heineken Open final. He had pretty good reason to be.
It was his sixth successive final defeat, a streak dating back to 2003 - a career year when he claimed three regular ATP titles and the French Open to soar to No 1 in the world.
2003 must seem like a long time ago for the Spaniard. The next year his ranking was 31. For the next three years it hovered between 18 and 24.
Ferrero always felt he was on the verge of pushing back into the game's upper echelon. When he made his run to the final in Auckland and then backed it up with a run to the fourth round of the Australian Open, beating 10th seed David Nalbandian in the process, it seemed 2008 might finally be the break-back year.
It wasn't. Injuries plagued his season and his ranking plummeted outside of the top 50 for the first time in almost a decade. Ferrero blames himself for not dealing properly with a nagging shoulder injury.
"I'd play a match and feel pain but then I'd recover for three or four days and then play again and feel it again.
"This happened very often. I didn't feel 100 per cent and I should have stopped for a month to recover well. But I didn't so I couldn't give my best."
Eventually he gave in to the pain, taking four months off.
He lost to Frenchman Florent Serra in his first outing in Brisbane this year but, on arriving in Auckland yesterday, pronounced himself fully fit - almost.
A slight abdominal strain hampered him in Brisbane but there was no sign of it resurfacing during his first practice session in Auckland.
"Physically I'm all right."
Mentally, too, he is in good shape. This season will determine whether last year's slide was a one-off or the start of something more significant but the 28-year-old, whose career earnings total more than $18 million, is confident he will bounce back.
"In the second half of the year I have no points to defend so I feel I have a [good] chance to get in the top 15 again. If I feel fit and good physically then I think I can do it."
His experiences of Auckland have been mixed. In 2000 he beat Roger Federer on the way to the quarter-finals but in 2005 and 2007 he was dumped out in the first round.
Despite his painful loss to Kohlschreiber, Ferrero prefers to concentrate on last year's successes.
"All week I was playing very good. The final was a pity. Of course I was disappointed because I wanted to win but tennis is like that."
