Where to now Mr. Federer? Coach Gilbert? Coach Sampras?
What does the world’s best tennis player do after losing one of the greatest tennis matches ever played on his favorite surface? Get better.
Every sports writer under the sun is writing about how Federer has fallen from grace and Nadal is the new world No. 1. Nadal pulled out of the Stuttgart tournament the week after Wimbledon, thus losing him 250 points as he had previously won the title in 2007, in other words winning Wimbledon only put him 50 ranking points closer to the No. 1 ranking.
You do not get to No. 1 in the world and dominate a sport like tennis without being one of the most competitive human beings on the planet. I believe that Federer and his team are looking at every possible way that he can get better; from a new coach to different training regimes to different string patterns and equipment. Does this sound crazy, yes but at this level of professional sport any edge could mean the difference between winning and losing.
I believe Federer will hire a full time coach before the U.S. Open. Candidates that would be able to fill this position are, Brad Gilbert, who is a real strategy guru and when combined with Federer’s talent and array of skills, could take Federer miles ahead of the competition again. Pete Sampras could be another candidate, yes he has not coached but let’s be serious - the guy knows what he is doing on the big stage! Could you imagine Federers next opponent looking over the net and seeing Federer and then looking over to his box and seeing his coach, Pete Sampras? That’s pretty intimidating!
Federer has been the catalyst for taking men’s professional tennis to another level over the past four years and he was years ahead of the competition. He has dragged his competition to new heights. They are now starting to catch him but he still has the fight and talent to take his game to another new level.
Watch out world! Federer Part 2 is coming soon.
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I so agree with you….Federer should hire a coach..hope he comes back strong.
Wishful thinking.
Somehow I think Agassi would be a better candidate for Roger than Sampras. I don’t think Pete will coach Fed because of the fact that Fed is trying to break his record and all. Brad Gilbert? I doubt it. I think it will probably be Paul Anacone or Darren Cahill. I think Brad would be the best choice but I just don’t think Fed will choose him under any circumstances.
Federer lost 300 points in Wimbledon while Nadal gained 300 so by winning Nadal got 600 points closer. The next week this Nadal fell back by 250 so overal he got 350 points closer, not 50. But who’s counting
? What will matter more is whether Federer will be able to defend most of his many points of the second half of the year with Djokovic, Nadal, and others making this harder than in the past. By my count, the maximum amount of points Federer could improve on, by playing all the same tournaments and winning every single one of them through December is 750 points, which shows you how strong he was last year. This would include win everything he won last year: Canada, the US Open and the Masters. The other thing that will matter more than just Wimbledon by itself is whether Nadal will get more points on hardcourt in the coming months than in 2007. Just for the sake of comparison, if Nadal won every tournament that he played in last year through the end of 2008 he would gain another 2675 points. Nadal did play much stronger on hardcourt in the early 2008 hardcourt season than in 2007, is confident now and has been adapting his game, so we’ll see what he will be able to do. It is because of these two reasons (Roger and Rafa’s points) and because of the rise of Djokovic that writers are contemplating the possibility of a possible new number one in the ATP ranking (Roger has not been number 1 in the Race all this calendar year).
I know this is an article about Federer, but to be more complete in your last point it would be good to point out that the other force that has improved the level of play over the last few years is Nadal, especially in pushing Federer to improve his own game, and not only at the French Open. Can you imagine the exact same playing circuit since 2005 but without Nadal? Federer would have won more competitions yet would have been pushed far less to improve. And then someone like Djokovic would become a larger threat by about this year. This goes along with your article’s main point: Federer now has renewed motivation to improve, especially due to Nadal’s and Djokovic’s improved play and ATP points, and due to Federer’s age starting to force him to find other improvements, as Agassi had to do to remain competitive at the highest levels in his late 20’s and early 30’s.
What Adam says is true, Nadal is 350 points closer not 50 even after dropping out of Stuttgart, and that is a whole lot considering that Federer has a whole lot of points to defend from now on. Now, if Nadal and Federer were to play equal to what they played last year from this point on, then Federer would obviously continue in his No 1 ranking. But Nadal will surely play better than his sub par performance last year in the second half of the season. If Adam’s calculation is correct, he has approx 2000 more points to gain than Federer this year which pretty much makes it a foregone possibility that he will surpass Federer as No 1 at the year end. In fact, even if Federer retains his No 1 ranking going into US open and wins it, Nadal could still easily become No1 after the tournament as he has 850 points in comparison to Federer’s 0 points to gain.
I think that adjustments definitely need to made on Federer’s part. I don’t think the biggest issue is some decline in his own game, or a matter of the rest of the field catching up to him. I think that Nadal has been the catalyst, the one player who has improved to reach Federer’s competitive confidence and strength-levels. I believe that Federer is still miles ahead of the rest of the field, except for Nadal, who can now be a constant threat to him on all surfaces. Federer’s main goal should be to improve his own fitness (though he is certainly quite fit) and to improve his strategy against Nadal, specifically. Most obviously, I think he should work with his team (however that team is going to be shaped) on improving his return game against the Nadal lefty serve. His abysmal success-rate against Nadal’s newly potent serve was a major factor between winning and losing his recent matches against Nadal, including Wimbledon. Federer MUST improve his attack on the Nadal service games. I think this is a very good prospect for Federer; it’s specific and constitutes one major thing he can zero-in upon, instead of beginning to question the rest of his overall game. How he will improve his attack on the Nadal serve remains to be seen, but I think he certainly can improve it, and will take steps to do so. He’d be a compete fool if he didn’t, and we know he is no fool.
The change has to come from Roger. I think Sampras as a coach would be a good idea. Not in terms of tennis, Roger has plenty of it and doesn’t need a “tennis coach”, but to recover some faith and play the big moments like he used to. How many times has he earned a service break only to be broken at love right after? How many break points has he had against Nadal this year, converting less than 10% of them?
I think what he needs is a no nonsense coach. Enough of all these exhibition matches. It was nice when he was on top of the world. But the world is rising now. And confidence alone aint carrying him as his loss to Karlovic just a few minutes ago says.
TAke break. Skip the Olympics and get back on court practicing doing what he does best - D O M I N A T E
unfortuanetly, sampras would not be a good coach. He’s, in my opinion, the best ever to play. Better than than Federer. At his best, sampras would beat Federer convincingly. That being said, sampras only believes in one way to play the game. So unless fed. is willing to convert to a full time serve and volleyer, the relationship would not last.
Sampras would not beat Federer convincingly, if both played their best. I think each one would have a decent share of wins over the other. When they played each other in Wimbledon 2001, people forget that yes, Sampras was past his prime, but not *nearly* as much as Federer was before his prime. Federer still had a fair bit of developing to do as a player, and Sampras was still at the very top echelons of the game. And Federer won.
I think the one area where we might concur is: If Federer had played in the 1990’s against the players of that time, he would win far less than 12 grand slams. And he probably would never have been 230+ weeks at number 1. There were too many mentally tough players in that decade.