Race To Dubai / Ralph Ellis / 21 December 2010 /

The world no.1 from Worksop is spending December in the gym as attempts to better a golden 2010

I suppose you can't begrudge AP McCoy his place as Sports Personality of the Year. And fair play to whoever backed him at [120.0] on Betfair earlier in the year. But I just can't see why Lee Westwood wasn't anywhere in the top three.

Maybe it was the odd way the BBC presented the show, making Colin Montgomerie the focus of their golfing coverage. The fact that an ordinary lad from Worksop had taken over from Tiger Woods as the best player on the planet was treated almost as an afterthought. With this one I'm siding with Ian Poulter who Tweeted: "BBC Spoty farce". I mean Phil Taylor as number two? He's a fabulous, dominant darts player but a sportsman? And how does David Beckham deserve a lifetime achievement award when even he says he hasn't even got near the end of his football career yet, let alone his life?

The only thing you can hope is that come next December Westwood is still in that lofty position, and that he's finally won a Major or two to go with it. It's not impossible.

There's a great interview with him in today's Daily Express in which he reveals he's spending December working hard in the gym on his fitness before he starts hitting balls again in January.

"If you are the best at something you have to put yourself in the position of the people behind you. They all want something I've got, so to retain it I am going to have to work harder," he says. He's [4.3] favourite to win the 2011 Race to Dubai.

The amazing thing about Westwood's year was that he finally dislodged not only Woods as number one, but Phil Mickelson who seems to have spent just as long at number two. Perhaps that might serve as an inspiration to another Englishman who is trying to crack top spot in his sport - Andy Murray, who has to get past Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.

Like Westwood, Murray is also currently doing his annual pre-season fitness work - the only difference being he's out in Miami. And he's just confirmed that he'll retain Spaniard Alex Corretja as his main coach and keep long time friend Dani Vallverdu on tour as his practice partner. That's a good thing as he's always chopped and changed his backroom team too much.

The spell in Miami is the same routine he went through this time last year, and it kicked off his season to a superb start when he went to the Australian Open final. You can only hope he'll learn this time from the mistakes he made as he let the crushing defeat in Melbourne by Federer knock him completely off his game for months after.

Nobody seems to be expecting much. It's [1.29] that Murray won't win a Grand Slam in 2011, and a lay of [1000.0] for him to follow Westwood's lead and finish up as the king of his own sport. You just hope he has finally realised, just like Westwood, that to be number one you have to do the work yourself and not look to blame anybody else.

Five things you might not know about Dani Vallverdu
1. Born March 1986 in Valencia, Venezuela, he is named after his mum Daniela
2. He was No 3 in college tennis in the United States, where he played for the University of Miami, and represented Venezuela in the Davis Cup
3. He met Murray when they were both at the Sanchez-Casal Tennis Academy in Barcelona. They played five doubles tournaments together, winning four but forced to scratch from the fifth because Vallverdu went to play qualifiers for the US Open
4. He studied business management at Miami
5. As a pro his tennis career never took off. He has never been higher than 727 in the world as a singles player and 746 at doubles. His total winnings are less than 10,000 dollars

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