Roger Federer Ready for South American Exhibition Tour

Written by: Staff on 3rd December 2012

Roger Federer Ready for South American Exhibition Tour

epa03467610 Roger Federer of Switzerland celebrates after beating Britain's Andy Murray in their semi final match of the ATP World Tour tennis finals in London, Britain, 11 November 2012. EPA/ANDY RAIN |

Roger Federer has begun the countdown to this week’s start of his exhibition trip to South America, with the Swiss set to play for four nights in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo. The star of his first trip to the continent will take on a supporting cast of Brazilian No. 1 Thomaz Bellucci and will also face Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

The women’s program will feature Maria Sharapova facing Caroline Wozniacki and Serena Williams playing Victoria Azarenka. The Bryan brothers will be along for doubles duties.

Federer has said for months how keen he is to finally travel to South America, even if he has never played any ATP events there. “If you haven’t been to a place, you just don’t know as much as you should. You have to look it up, spend a lot of time with people who are from there. I’ve had obviously some experiences, but I guess not enough.

“One of my big dreams was to hopefully play there one day. I knew through the normal schedule, it was going to be extremely hard to do. My only way to get to South America in some ways was to play an exhibition tour. I’m happy we’ve been able to accomplish that.”

Federer is expecting the December 6-15 tour of Brazil, Argentina and Colombia to be learning as well as earning experience for him.

“It’s big for me to go to see new places, playing in front of a crowd that I’ve never experienced before. That’s going to be really, really nice,”said the Swiss world No. 2.

“I definitely have some homework still to do more about the cities I’m going to, the countries, even though I know quite a few things. But I’d like to know as much as I can getting there beforehand.”

©Daily Tennis News Wire

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