Interview With Roger Federer

Written by: Staff on 15th August 2012

Interview With Roger Federer

epa03255203 Roger Federer of Switzerland returns to Novak Djokovic of Serbia during their semi final match for the French Open tennis tournament at Roland Garros in Paris, France, 08 June 2012. EPA/YOAN VALAT |

ROGER FEDERER

TIM CURRY: Thanks, everyone, for

joining us today for our media call with Roger

Federer. The world’s top-ranked player is joining

us from Cincinnati where he is the No. 1 seed at

this week’s Western & Southern Open.

Since the Emirates Airline US Open Series

began in 2004, Roger has won more Series

tournaments than any other player, male or female,

with six titles. And in 2007, Roger collected the

biggest paycheck in tennis history, $2.4 million for

winning the US Open and the US Open Series,

$1.4 for winning the US Open and $1 million bonus

for doing so as Series champion.

Roger is making his 2012 Emirates Airline

US Open Series debut this week in preparation for

the US Open where he will start his quest for a

sixth title two weeks from today.

With that being said, we will open the call

for questions.

Q. Novak Djokovic won the Australian

Open and Rafa Nadal the French Open, you

Wimbledon, Andy Murray the gold medal.

Would you consider this year’s US Open to be

sort of a tiebreaker to the tournament of who

has had the best year?

ROGER FEDERER: Obviously it gives

you a direction, yes. But you have the ATP World

Tour Finals at the end of the year and there’s still a

lot of tournaments to play for like Shanghai and

Paris, so forth. It’s not just only I think the US

Open, otherwise the winner wouldn’t play the

remainder of the year. I think that’s not going to

happen.

It is interesting, obviously, that three

different guys have won three different majors this

year, plus Andy the gold. It definitely sets a great

tone for the US Open, there’s no doubt about that.

Q. I’m wondering if you have had the

time or taken the time to analyze what

happened at the gold medal match. It was so

lopsided, so out of the character, not what

we’re used to seeing.

ROGER FEDERER: Honestly it took me

five minutes to analyze really. I didn’t need to kind

of sit down and go in a dark room and cry over it

and kind of understand what happened. I think I

understood rather quickly what happened.

I thought Andy played a good match. The

beginning of the match was very close. I had

some chances there. Had some chances in the

second set. I think I missed nine breakpoints, I

didn’t make one. That obviously doesn’t work in a

big match like this against a great player like Andy.

Once he was in the lead, obviously he did really

well to keep the lead.

Yeah, I think that was it for me. Maybe I

was emotionally drained a touch. Maybe I was a

bit tired from the Del Potro match. I thought Andy

did really well to put the pressure on me. It was

out of character for me to lose nine games a row in

the finals. That’s obviously something that can

happen, but I guess I got myself to blame, and

Andy’s great level of play.

For me, I moved on really quickly. I was

happy for him and disappointed for me. I was still

very happy to get the silver and the medal for

Switzerland.

Q. Could you look back to Wimbledon

a little bit? Everybody always tries to retire

players when they hit 30. It seems like the

game is skewing a little older now.

ROGER FEDERER: I think you’re right. I

mean, I think over 30 players in the main draw of

the French Open. Seeing, for instance, how well

Tommy Haas is playing, how many of my

generation are still playing and playing well, it’s

nice to see really.

I remember when I was coming up on tour

how many great rivalries we had in the younger

generation. When I came up, we came up,

basically there was still Agassi, Sampras, Moya,

Henman, you name it, all the older guys that made

the tour work.

I think we had so many great young

players coming up, it’s nice to see so many guys

are playing well, holding on and winning titles

really.

I think it’s really good times in tennis. Like

you say, you have the older generation, you have

the generation of Rafa that’s extremely strong as

well, and now the new generation is coming

through as well with Bernard Tomic, Milos Raonic,

David Goffin, Kei Nishikori, all those guys. It’s

good times in tennis right now. But I do hope we

get even some more better younger juniors coming

through in the next couple years.

Q. With a longer-than-normal grass

court season in 2012, such a short turnaround

to prepare for New York, do you think it’s

tougher to make the switch from grass courts

to hard courts this season? What are the

precautionary measures you might implement

to ensure you can stay healthy now?

ROGER FEDERER: Well, there’s no

doubt about it, this is not an ideal preparation. I

mean, it’s amazing, for instance, what Novak was

able to do. It’s not impossible, but it’s just very

hard on the body and mind to travel halfway

around the world, go on a different surface, win,

then back it up week and week again. Obviously,

the US Open is only coming up. That hasn’t even

started yet.

It’s been tough. In the past you would take

maybe a few weeks off for a top player, then

prepare for three brutal weeks on hard courts, then

come over here wanting to fire out of all cylinders.

This year it’s different. Obviously we

stayed on grass. Now all I have is four days on

hard courts before I play my first round here

probably against a top 30 player or top 40 player.

It makes it obviously very difficult and a big focus

for me to get through my first-round match over

here.

Obviously physically I feel fine. The body

did hurt maybe the first couple of days just

because the movement is a bit different. But I

think everybody has a bit of issues like that in the

beginning. So it’s just important to be professional,

sleep enough, eat healthy, do all your treatment

the right way, all that stuff, so you will manage the

next like over six months on hard courts now.

That’s the most brutal surface out there. It’s a big

stretch coming up for all of us really.

Q. You just said that physically you

feel fine. How do you feel mentally and

emotionally going into this year’s US Open as

opposed to last year? Can you look back a

little bit on last year’s Open.

ROGER FEDERER: I’m very excited, very

happy. Back to world No. 1. I’ve had a magical

summer for me. Really ever since the French

Open, it’s been a good year all around anyways,

but winning Wimbledon, getting back to world

No. 1, there’s been so many things happening for

me, it’s been a wonderful last few weeks.

I feel like I’m feeling better than last year

because I was a bit shaken up against the loss by

Jo-Wilfred Tsonga, and even through Montréal, it

was a tough situation. Cincy I didn’t play all that

great, lost to Tomas Berdych. I came into the US

Open not quite sure of how I was playing. I was

actually playing really, really well. I had that brutal

match with Novak, up two sets to love.

I feel like this year mentally I’m more at

peace. Then again, that doesn’t give you any –

how do you say – idea yet of how you’re going to

do at the US Open and Cincinnati. We all have to

wait and see how that goes.

Q. You mentioned about reclaiming the

world No. 1 spot in the ATP world rankings.

You surpassed Pete Sampras’ record by doing

that this summer. At your age, at this time in

your career, how important is it to you to keep

surpassing records like those of Pete’s?

ROGER FEDERER: I don’t know how

important it really is for me. I just think it’s a

motivation, a big one, for me to be able to have the

opportunity to reach such great records, you know,

equal, tie and break records like these. It

obviously kind of gets you going.

It motivates me to play against younger

generations. It motivates me playing in front of full

stadiums. All these things add to the great puzzle

and life I’m living as a player. It makes easier, all

the sacrifices, all the traveling, playing we do on a

daily basis.

But it’s not most important. But obviously

it’s a nice thing to have and one I hope I will be

very proud of once I retire.

Q. The US Open has record prize

money again this year, $25.5 million. You’re

somebody that travels all around the world.

Can you tell us if you’ve seen how the

economy has affected different places? I

imagine pro tennis players are insulated

because the tournaments take very good care

of you as you travel. But can you talk about if

you’ve seen any change in how places have

been affected by the economy over the last few

years.

ROGER FEDERER: By ‘places’ you mean

tournaments, right?

Q. Yes.

ROGER FEDERER: I think we’ve gone

through the crisis – who knows, maybe there’s

another crisis on the horizon here – actually pretty

good, considering how bad the economy was from

2008 till now. We’re obviously trying to sign on

some sponsors during that time for the tour

because we lost Mercedes and others. I think

we’ve actually gotten through this financial crisis,

economic crisis, really well.

I think also, obviously because it’s a

one-week or two-week event, you have an entire

year to look for ways trying to make your

tournament sustainable. Obviously you hope that

they had long-term contracts. Obviously some did

get unlucky, that the contracts ran out right at the

time that you didn’t want it to run out. Obviously

then it was a dangerous and difficult situation really

for those.

They asked the ATP for relief, the council

and board. That’s what we discussed and tried to

make it a good decision for the tournament but

also for the players, because you want to keep the

jobs alive for all those players, that they can travel

the world and still make money and have all those

possibilities to play tournaments.

Overall we’ve gotten through this pretty

good. Yeah, we hope it’s a successful tour, and I

feel it is.

Q. Could you address the fact that a

couple weeks ago they announced that

Wimbledon in 2015 will move into the summer

an extra week, so there would be three weeks

of grass court play prior to it.

ROGER FEDERER: Well, I think it’s a

great thing. I think it was very well-received from

the players. From what I heard, everybody was in

favor of it. Think back at how the tour used to be.

We used to have three Grand Slams on grass, and

now we only have one. We barely have one

month of tennis on grass.

Obviously it’s nice to keep that surface

alive a bit more. It gives just a bit of a bigger rest

between the French Open and Wimbledon, so that

completely makes sense.

Obviously, you have to understand every

change brings problems from time to time. But I’m

happy that Wimbledon and the US Open were able

to sort out that kind of a situation because it wasn’t

an easy one for the US Open, but a very good one

for the players. I think Wimbledon is excited about

it, too. I think it has many more upsides than

downsides to it.

Q. For those of us who weren’t at

Wimbledon for the Olympics, how different was

it? Was there anything you missed that you

would normally have at Wimbledon? Anything

you liked about the Olympics?

ROGER FEDERER: Yes, many things I

missed from the Wimbledon tournament. I guess

you also felt that it was just a completely different

event. Those things we thought we were very

nice, then other things we had to get used to.

I think it was nice we had to adjust, that it

was a completely different feel from Wimbledon to

the Olympics. I think overall it was a well-run

tournament. At times it almost felt like the site was

too big for the Olympics. I can only speak from

experience from Sydney, Athens and Beijing.

They all created the stadiums for the Olympics.

They were not as big, obviously, as Wimbledon.

Hardly any is, except for the US Open.

I thought it was great to have such a big

site, but at times it was too spread out, I thought it

was. Then again, it didn’t change the fact that we

had great atmospheres in the stadiums, that it was

a very unique place to play tennis at where there is

so much history.

Q. When your girls were born, you

spoke about wanting to be around the game

long enough for them to be aware of who you

were as a tennis player and what you had

accomplished. What do you think their sense

is now, because they are a little bit older, and

what do you and Mirka tell them?

ROGER FEDERER: It was really Mirka’s

wish more than mine. I’m just happy I’m still

playing and things are still going so well for me,

that I’m actually able to feed them almost on a

daily basis. That’s what I was worried most with

Mirka. Maybe with having twins, it was going to

get extremely difficult to travel the world with them,

see them enough, that it was not going to actually

worry.

It was really Mirka’s dream to have them

still see me play from time to time. We’ve already

had that now. So I don’t know exactly what they

think of me. As their dad, they know I’m a tennis

player, that I do play a lot of tennis, but I don’t think

they understand that it’s actually a job. They don’t

understand, I think, the difference between a

match and practice.

It doesn’t matter. They sit in stadiums.

They’ve created obviously some of the most

unique moments in my life, having seen them, you

know, at let’s say trophy ceremony in Basel, trophy

ceremony particularly at Wimbledon this year.

Those are memories no one can ever take away

from me and Mirka. That was a very intimate

moment for me and Mirka even though it was in

the eye of the storm with everybody watching.

It was a great, great feeling for me. I hope

they also look back and were happy we did those

things. We really try to protect them as much as

we can. Life on tour is good with them. I’m happy

the way things are going.

Q. Do you want them to play the game?

ROGER FEDERER: Not necessarily, no.

If they really, really want to, I’ll support them. If

they don’t, I’m very happy they do something

different, as well.

Q. There’s been a lot of talk over your

records. There’s two that don’t get a lot of

attention. You’ve never retired from a match

once you started plus you’ve played every

Grand Slam since 2000. What pride do you

take from those?

ROGER FEDERER: I wonder how many

close calls I’ve actually had to retire during a

match. Maybe a handful where I was just thinking,

man, I’m in too much pain, I maybe actually

shouldn’t be playing. But I can just play, or I have

so much pain, but I know I won’t injure myself

more. It was more kind of like some of those

moments.

Obviously playing the consecutive Grand

Slams, you don’t really think about it. I’ve never

actually entered a Grand Slam just to enter to keep

that streak going. I guess I was always lucky

enough and prepared enough to feel like I could do

something and play well or even at times obviously

win very often at Grand Slams. So that’s not one

thing I thought about.

But every match I play, not retiring after a

match for me, that’s something that’s almost

normal. If you do enter, you’re supposed to be

playing. I’m happy also I’ve played schedules from

always January till November basically. I’ve never

taken a full season off after the Open. I’ve never

taken more than, what, eight weeks off from the

tour. I’m obviously proud of this.

Then again, it doesn’t mean that much. I

know other players have many more problems

trying to do that all the time and some just can’t

because it’s not possible with their body or they’ve

gotten unlucky much more than I have over the

years.

I think I’ve taken great care of myself and

mentally I’m very strong to be able to handle all of

that, I do believe.

TIM CURRY: Thanks, everyone, for

joining us. Roger was kind enough to give us

some of his time. We appreciate you doing that,

Roger.

ROGER FEDERER: It’s been a pleasure,

guys. See you.

Topics: American tennis news, Cincinnati tennis news, Federer, roger, Roger Federer, Sports, Swiss tennis news, Tennis News, Timmy Curry

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