Will Brisbane 2015 push Roger Federer onto greater heights.
Now that Roger Federer has won a Davis Cup winners’ medal and pretty much won everything there is to win in tennis life, he can afford to kick back and relax, yes? No it would appear not as he gears up to make his debut for the International Premier Tennis League.
He stirred up a twitter frenzy asking fans to photo-shop him into Indian sights, IPTL doubles goddess Sania Mirza is giddy at the prospect of playing on his team, and the Aces have been at the top of their game, losing just one match as the inaugural exhibition gathers up pace.
But the main events of 2015 are just around the corner, and Federer will once more start his year “Down Under” in Brisbane. Last year the organisers must have been rubbing their hands with glee to have Federer and home-crowd favourite Lleyton Hewitt in the final, with the Aussie taking the honours.
This year the two finalists return and Federer tops a cast list of Slam luminaries, including current US Open champion Marin Cilic, and let’s have a big hand for returning Juan Martin Del Potro to the tour after a wrist injury side-lined him for 2014.
So what is there left to win? Well that elusive 18th Grand Slam surely is top of the revised list of Federer must-haves. After his tearful loss to Rafael Nadal he made up for it a year later in 2010 when he won his fourth Australian Open.
Switzerland’s Roger Federer serves to Japan’s Kei Nishikori at the ATP World Tour Finals mens tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London, Britain, 11 November 2014. EPA/ANDY RAIN
With Nadal declaring that he will be starting from zero behind World No. 1 Novak Djokovic and Federer himself, he has got to be a cast iron favourite to decimate the field, if he has completely recovered from the back spasm that kicked him out of the Barclays World Tour Finals title match, and made him look pedestrian against an inspired Gael Monfils a week or so later in his first Davis Cup Final rubber.
However, the restorative skills of the Swiss team around him meant that it was Federer who grasped the Davis Cup title for the team, and filled a void in his trophy cabinet. So now Federer is potentially at his most dangerous, with nothing more to prove (not that he had anything to prove, for a while now).
Let us consider – Djokovic and Nadal will be challenging each other, along with Andy Murray and Australian Open champion Stan Wawrinka in the Mubadala World Tennis Championships before the stars scatter for the official start of the season.
Federer is opting to be in Australia sooner rather than later, as Djokovic and Nadal head instead to Doha. And his preparations last year could not have been any better, with a run to the final in Brisbane, practice in Melbourne, before going out in the semi-finals to Nadal.
With Nadal an unknown quantity, but certainly not to be dismissed as his own powers of recovery and comeback are now legendary, and with Murray still working his way back to the kind of form that saw him pick up two Slam titles in two years, who could count out Federer to just push that all-time list a little further out of reach from the chasing pack?
Federer’s “comeback” from the year when all around declared doom in 2013 has put him squarely back at the top of the game, and it all started in Brisbane. So will the Sunshine Coast shine down on another landmark year for the Swiss?
Federer will be playing in the IPTL in the India leg starting 6 December, and the Brisbane International, starting 4 January. He will also be reuniting with fellow Swiss Davis Cup team-mate Stan Wawrinka for a charity match in Switzerland on 21 December.
Switzerland’s Roger Federer cheers after winning his semi final match against Croatia’s Ivo Karlovic at the Swiss Indoors tennis tournament at the St. Jakobshalle in Basel, Switzerland, 25 October 2014. EPA/GEORGIOS KEFALAS
Topics: Federer, global chick, IPTL, Novak Djokovic, Rafa Nadal, Sania Mirza, Tennis News
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