ATP Finals London: Roger Federer - The Maestro as a free-floating artist
Roger Federer goes his own way. And these paths serve only one goal: to get the best out of the final phase of his career.
by Jörg Allmeroth
last edit: Nov 14, 2019, 08:32 am
It's been a little while since Roger Federer talked about the last phase of his career in a Swiss tennis club. And about the time afterwards, without tennis, without the pressure of deadlines and results, without the life out of the suitcase. He looks forward to "adventure" on the tennis tour in the near future, "to the unknown", to the "unexpected", "to" weeks, which I just enjoy. "
These days, Federer plays at a gratifying date, in a familiar place, for the seventeenth time he is at the season finale of the top eight, at the World Cup in London. If he wins against Novak Djokovic in the all-or-nothing group match on Thursday, he will continue in the big game for the title as a semi-finalist.
But apart from this World Cup commitment, it has become clear in recent weeks what Federer meant at home in his secretive training location: on the final stretch of his career, the maestro has also become a pretty free-floating artist and entrepreneur, a man who frees himself from many everyday constraints and regulations of his sport.
Federer, more than ever, goes his own way, pursuing his own interests. Of course, Federer knows that many in the industry watch him suspiciously, also because he leaves out many tournaments and thwarts the intentions of powerful players. But on the other hand, it is also clear: To whom should Federer still owe anything in his sport after all these years, after all his services and merit. "The fact that he now thinks of himself, including how best to combine tennis with his family life, is the most normal in the world," says his compatriot Marc Rosset, the former top professional.
Federer says ATP Cup
Especially in the next few weeks, it becomes clear how much the 38-year-old father of twin daughters and twin sons can - and perhaps will - swim against the current of majorities and foreign interests. In the controversial Davis Cup premiere next week - for the first time the Nations Cup will be held as a final tournament - Federer is not in Madrid at the start, he is not only the most prominent objectors, he even starts with a parallel exhibition fight tour in South America Art counterpoint. Spicy enough that Alexander Zverev, one of the next generation stars, is on Federer's side. Spicy, yes. But not surprising, because Zverev has recently signed with Team8, the agency that founded Federer and his manager Tony Godsick. Federer is also a power politician in this matter, because with his Laver Cup project, the competition Europe against the rest of the world, he blocks the September-desired date of the Davis Cup organizers to football professional Gerard Piqué.
atpfinalsskytext1
The fact that Federer recently also gave the players 'union ATP a basket, astonished the industry significantly more - also because Federer had recently been more active in his sports policy with his return to the players' council. But before the tennis World Cup announced Federer, he would not participate in the new flagship and prestigious project ATP Cup, at the beginning of the year in Australia.
After a show in China at the end of December, he would take a break and spend time with the family, said Federer - not exactly to the delight of the co-organizer Tennis Australia, which is also involved in Federer's Laver Cup. And not for the pleasure of the ATP, which accepted the Laver Cup as an official part of the annual calendar. Federer's cancellation was not only tough, it was her, too, a coolly calculated interest calculation. Basically, the ATP Cup would have shortened the already short seasonal break from official tennis even further for him, and in addition would have been without the second Swiss top man Stan Wawrinka (he had committed to the concurrent tournament in Doha) no chance of success.
Anyone who saw Federer playing this season would never have thought that someone would whiz about the place whose career began two decades ago. Federer won his 100th career title in Dubai, he also won the tournaments in Halle and Basel for the tenth time, each with a new record for him. Only just after two missed match balls in the final against Djokovic, he failed on the ninth Wimbledon triumph.
But Federer has not tired this season to emphasize the meticulous detail planning over hours, days, weeks and months is needed again and again to "keep the engine running": "It's not all that obvious, it seems , You do not have the body of a 20- or 30-year-old, "he said at that meeting back home in Switzerland. An important part of all strategic considerations is therefore, "not only the well-trodden paths to go", but "always new and surprising" to experience. "That keeps me fresh, that keeps me in tennis," said Federer. He lives this maxim now too. And more and more often.