‘Battle With Nadal for World Number 1 Great for the Fans’ – Federer

Published 06/20/2018, 1:48 PM EDT

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Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal swapped places in the ATP rankings yet again.This time, it is Federer who has emerged ahead after beating Nick Kyrgios. With that, he progressed to the Stuttgart Open final, which he went on to win.

Meanwhile, Nadal has withdrawn from Queen’s next week. As a result, Federer will head into Wimbledon next month as the top seeded player.

The 36-year-old explained how much he enjoys the tussle with his arch-rival for the top honour.

via Imago

“It’s great for the fans that it’s been going back and forth (between himself and Nadal),” Federer said.

“It’s quite fun at the moment.”

After taking on and defeating Milos Raonic in the final, he heads to the Halle Open before Wimbledon.

As he looks ahead to the gras court gran slam, he has given himself a rallying call. The Swiss ace vows to begin building momentum ahead of the third Grand Slam of the year.

“My season starts now,” he added. “I’m playing Halle and Wimbledon. We will see about Canada (the Masters event in August).

“I don’t have much (schedule) wiggle room, I’m playing as much as possible.

“There was not a lot of talk about number one over the past four years, it’s been exciting over the last few months.

“These kind of matches (for the top spot) don’t come around so often.”

Already, Federer is off to a flying start in Halle. He dispatched Aljaz Bedene in straight sets yesterday. Tomorrow, he is set to face Benoit Paire in the Round of 16.

Meanwhile, all the players are hard at work trying to be as prepared as possible for the 2018 Wimbledon season. Nadal will be practicing in his hometown before heading to London.

This isn’t the first time that Nadal has adopted such a tactic, as he did it last year as well.

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Dhruv George

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Dhruv George is a senior Formula One and NASCAR analyst for EssentiallySports, having authored nearly 12000 articles spanning different sports like F1, NASCAR, Tennis, NFL, and eSports. He graduated with a PG Diploma in Journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications. Dhruv has also conducted interviews with F1 driver Pierre Gasly and Moto2 rider Tony Arbolino.
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