Federer Is Happy With New Coach Stefan Edberg And His Wilson Racket

Written by: Bob Larson Tennis on 23rd January 2014

Federer Is Happy With New Coach Stefan Edberg And His Wilson Racket

epa04032603 Roger Federer of Switzerland returns to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France during their fourth round match for the Australian Open Grand Slam tennis tournament in Melbourne, Australia, 20 January 2014. Federer won the match. EPA/FRANCK ROBICHON |

Roger Federer is reaping the benefits of both newly appointed part-time celebrity coach Stefan Edberg’s encouragement to play more attacking tennis and the bigger, more powerful Wilson racket he will now probably use for the remainder of his career.

After a series of early season defeats last year, Federer came to the conclusion that he required more power from his racket. After an early exit to Sergiy Stakhovsky at Wimbledon he contacted Wilson, whose rackets he has used since boyhood, to provide him with a new weapon encompassing a larger head that offered a greater sweet spot and a more guaranteed strike zone.

Wilson technicians in Zurich provided Federer with a couple of prototypes which hardly provided him with instant success. He lost to far from accomplished performers such as Daniel Brands in Gstaad and Federico Delbonis in Hamburg. After another defeat against the infinitely better known Rafael Nadal in Cincinnati he abandoned the experiment in competition and returned to his trusted racket he had been using for years.

Privately, the testing continued and when Federer arrived in Australia he met up with his manager Tony Godsick, he was presented with 12 new rackets that arrived via Los Angeles and Sydney.

Federer’s exemplary form in last night’s 6-3, 7-5, 6-4 win over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, widely viewed as the former world no.1’s most exciting performance in a very long time, showed how well things are now working.

“I do believe I have easier power with the racket on the serve and it might help me on the return,” said Federer who now goes forward to face Wimbledon champion Andy Murray in the quarterfinals.

“I still need to put many more matches and hours on it, but so far so good. It’s a great start to the season with the racket, with my body. Everything is going well and it was smooth for me.”

ESPN tennis analyst Darren Cahill, who played on the tour for many years and subsequently coached the likes of Lleyton Hewitt, Andre Agassi and several other players through the auspices of the adidas Development Programme told The New York Times: “Rackets are the most important thing for a tennis player.

“Understanding it. Knowing it. Trusting it. It’s part of your family. Those stories of people putting rackets on their bed and sleeping with them, it’s what we live with. We see more of our rackets than we do of anybody else.”

Meanwhile upcoming opponent Murray poured scorn on the belief Edberg has had an immediate effect on Federer’s game. The Scot readily admits Ivan Lendl probably provided the difference between him being a routine Grand Slam runner-up to champion.

But said: “”I think it has been so soon that I you can’t really say that the coaches will have been able to really implement any change.”I believe at this level it takes a few months of working with someone and working on specific things on a daily basis to really make a huge change, so I wouldn’t have thought here you’d see a big difference or even a minor one. “I think in a few months you’ll start to see the work put in and whether it’s worked or not.”

Topics: 10sballs, Andy Murray, Daniel Brands, Jo Wilfried Tsonga, Lleyton Hewitt, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Sergiy Stakhovsky, Sports, Stefan Edberg, Tennis, Tennis News, Wilson