Sam Stosur arrived at last year's Newcombe Medal function wearing a floor-length gown that could not quite hide the flat shoes necessitated by recent, secret ankle surgery. On Monday, as she walked the same Plexicushion blue carpet, Stosur could laugh when asked if, this time, there was anything we should know about.
"No, no, I've had nothing but normal rest and doing what I want to do," Stosur said. "So no real issues."
But, still, some real change in the 12 months since her last appearance at the awards night, when the then world No. 8 won her third consecutive gong as most outstanding player. Stosur had just finished another season with long-time coach David Taylor and was preparing for another summer as the Australian Open's great local hope, confident she had learnt from home campaigns past.
Fast forward to late 2013: past another disastrous January (a single match win from tournaments in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne) and through a mediocre season redeemed only by two titles from three finals in its closing months.
Taylor is gone, replaced by Brit Miles Maclagan, who joined forces with his new client in Sydney on Tuesday. The previous night, world No. 60 Lleyton Hewitt won the "Newk" and, whatever the merits of that decision, the expectations around Stosur have faded, leaving the spotlight that has proved so paralysing on her home circuit since her 2011 US Open triumph slightly dimmed.
Which, one assumes, might be a very good thing?
"Yeah, probably," Stosur says. "I guess, in some ways, there's not really any pressure but there's always pressure because you want to play well and do your best here in your home country, at your home grand slam and all that.
"It is what it is. The last couple of years have been pretty disappointing, so hopefully this year I can really pick up from that and play well. That's what I want to do and I know if I play well then I've got a chance of doing half decent."
The brief off-season break that traditionally ends with a dash up the Coogee Beach stairs was shortened slightly by her run to the final of the Tournament of Champions in Sofia, although the super-fit Stosur insists she was ready by then to start the physical part of her annual preseason regime under trainer Narelle Sibte.
"This year we've been able to do a lot more on foot," she says, referring to the injury that compromised her preparation far more than might have been recognised. "Last year, I did heaps of bike and strength work because I wasn't able to really put weight through my legs for a long time. So this year I've been able to do a lot more of what we wanted to do last year and hopefully that's gonna pay dividends earlier on."
Mentally, too, there were the adjustments required after such a long association with Taylor. The pair split just before the US Open, where the exclamation mark on Stosur's poor grand slam year came with a shock loss to the 17-year-old 298th-ranked American wildcard Victoria Duval.
Still, a difficult time apparently became a positive learning experience, as those encouraging late season results would attest.
"I proved to myself that I can go out there and think of game plans and do all that myself and know 'OK, I've got to work on this, or I should be doing that' and go out there and maybe play a little bit more instinctively and kind of just feel things out," Stosur says. "So that was a really pleasing thing to come out of it.
"Even the whole of [the Asian swing] I didn't think was too bad. Even the matches that I lost to [Lucie] Safarova I was actually reasonably happy with, because I think I was able to forget about them, learn from them and then come back the next week, which was probably why I was able to get some good results.
"It was nice in some ways to go out there and play and not have anything kind of weighing on my shoulders and I think I proved to myself that I can rebound from a few bad losses and really pick it up. Of course, with the break and all that, it's hard to keep any sort of momentum but it's nice knowing that the last few weeks were good and I played lots of matches so it can hopefully start earlier next year."
By then, she will have had a month working with Maclagan, the former coach of Brits Andy Murray and Laura Robson. Stosur and her manager, Paul Kilderry, were always confident the low-key 39-year-old would be a good fit with the understated Queenslander, who has rarely looked for guidance from so far afield.
So, why Maclagan? Experience, partly, although not so much in the women's game.
"Laura's been the only female he's coached, so he says he's still feeling out the women's tour and learning it all himself," Stosur says.
"I think he's got a good demeanour on court, he seems to be very professional . . . I've always kind of got a good vibe from him.
"We've been at the same table for lunch a few times and whatnot. So there's still a lot to get to know about him but so far so good."
Changes will not be drastic, less than four months before Stosur's 30th birthday, leaving the emphasis more on the subtle tweaks needed in the constant quest for improvement. Changes have already been made to Stosur's schedule to include the guaranteed match play from the Hopman Cup and the smaller Hobart International before the return to Melbourne Park.
Certainly anything is worth trying and Stosur does not shy away from the scale and number of her past failures.
But, for someone more at home in thongs than heels, there is also some healthy and not-so-secret comfort to be taken from a positive end to a sometimes painful year.
