Federer Smoothes Things with Swiss Officials

Written by: Bob Larson Tennis on 2nd November 2010

Federer Smoothes Things with Swiss Officials |

When Roger Federer pulled out of Switzerland’s Davis Cup team just two days before September’s World Group relegation tie in Kazakhstan with the team were subsequently beaten 5-0 and pitched in the second tier Euro/Africa Zone, Swiss Tennis president René Stammbach demanded a face-to-face explanation.

At the time Stammbach, president since 2006, said: “Any answer will be respected and accepted – but we want answers.”

Tennis News understands the meeting finally took place before this week’s Swiss Indoors staged in Federer’s hometown of Basel and the talks were convivial.

“I had a good conversation with the president of Swiss Tennis and all is under control,” said Federer after winning his first round match when the Ukraine’s Aleksandr Dolgopolov was forced to retire with an injured ankle when trailing 6-4,5-2. “Criticism is okay but I think most of the people actually understood my decision.”

Federer explained he was just too weary after losing the semi-final of the U.S. Open just before the Swiss team was scheduled to fly to Astana. He gave himself a day or two to see how he responded to the loss to Novak Djokovic but in the end opted out. He said: “Kazakhstan was unfortunately not one I could do at the very end, I tried to keep it open as long as possible, but I always think of the long term.”

Even Federer’s close friend and Olympic gold medal winning doubles partner Stanislas Wawrinka was known to be disenchanted with the late timing of Federer’s announcement of non-availability and the

Stammbach ordered team captain Severin Lüthi, one of Federer’s closest confidantes, to speak to the longtime world no.1 to ascertain actually where everyone stood on the matter of Davis Cup. Federer has long maintained one of his remaining ambitions is to spearhead his country to the title but since 2005 he has only made himself available for the September play off round and in 2010 even that was not the case.

“At the end of the day it’s always going to be his decision and we don’t have a contract with him,” said Stammbach. “We’re just depending on his good will.

“If he wants to defend the colors of the country, that’s up to him. It’s not that we absolutely want to force him to say ‘yes’. We can’t expect that from him. But we would like to know what the goal is in his head – is it still to reach the semifinals or finals of the World Group or even win it? If so we will do everything we can to achieve that aim.

“But if the goal has changed, and his actions lead me to believe it has, then I think we also have to readjust. We cannot go on traveling with 17 people to a zonal group match. It’s not in proportion to the goal. That’s what we need to clarify.”

Topics: Ambitions, Basel, Davis Cup, Davis Cup Team, Good Conversation, Match, Novak Djokovic, Olympic Gold Medal, Relegation, Roger Federer, S Davis, Stanislas Wawrinka, Swiss Indoors, Swiss Officials, Swiss Team, Swiss Tennis, Team Captain, Tennis News, Winning Doubles, World Group