You know there was a time when Roger Federer was as accurate as a Swiss watch. There was consistency and precision. I don’t think it’s quite the case anymore and here is a perfect example of that.
Last week in...
You know there was a time when Roger Federer was as accurate as a Swiss watch. There was consistency and precision. I don’t think it’s quite the case anymore and here is a perfect example of that.
Last week in Basel, his hometown, he won the title for the fifth time and looked ahead to this week’s BNP Paribas Masters, which he has never won, not even reached the final, and said of the court speed, which has been slowed down compared to last year.
“Paris last year was lightening. I heard it’s a little slower than last year so I’m excited to see what that means. How much slower, touch slower, lot slower. It’s all on this wooden surface that’s painted over. They (should) feel similar or the same when you move and that’s the priority I wanted to get done with the tour; that it gets more structured,” Federer said.
Three days later he said: “I always feel like it should end up being rather faster than slower, just because at the end we are playing indoors. I haven't played on this year's surface yet. I hear it's definitely slower than last year. How much slower, I don't know.
“I just hope it's not again back to square one where we were when I lost to Nalbandian here when it was very, very slow. I don't mind it, but I just think it's not what we should be doing indoors, playing on a super slow indoor court, because that's then similar to Miami.
“For that matter, we need something that changes. We need to adapt, and it allows people to use their own strengths that they have maybe they can't use during outdoor tournaments, really.”
One other thing that Federer has on his radar is the fact that he feels tennis is too negative on itself, that there is too much talk about strikes and things. Well Rog maybe you should be talking to your fellow players and telling them to pipe down. They are the ones who raise the negative issues from strike action to wanting more money to changing the schedule.
Of course it would be great to always have a positive slant but that ain’t going to happen. There are too many opinions among the players.
“I think it would just be nice to keep it more on the positive side than always on the negative one, which I find has tendencies a bit too much in tennis. I follow golf from afar, but I feel everything is written positively. You can shoot a bad round, but still say he had two great shots. You rarely hear that in tennis,” he said.
Just wondering what he thinks of the names Tiger Woods, Steve Williams or even John
Daly. Not quite the positive outlook there. Don’t you think?
He then added: “I think it's a bit disappointing to see that (the) season is too long, this is not good, we should change this, change that. Clearly we need to make changes, but we don't need to make them publicly or within the press.”
So Roger what would you write then to take the positive slant? He said: “Just how
competitive it is. What a great record Novak has. How interesting it's been. How athletic it is. All those things. How many of the tournaments are running record numbers in people attending the tournaments. These kind of things. Definitely not about boycott.”
Yup absolutely, that would be great but then you will have people saying “how
boring is tennis?”
Federer then said a very smart thing: “I think normal common sense can solve so many
problems within our sport.”
Absolutely, but no one seems to be taking the lead.
