‘I love being in Basel’ says Roger Federer

Published 07/23/2018, 5:27 AM EDT

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via Imago

World number 1, Roger Federer spoke about a particular incident when he was in his teenage years. Around the age of 14, he was doubtful about continuing to train in Basel. He had even contemplated a move to Ecublens.

Federer explained the topic in a better way in the documentary Strokes of Genius. He said “My parents had asked me if I should or wanted to join the National Tennis Center. I said, ‘No, no, no, I love being in Basel, I have everything I need here. I have a great coach, two or other kids with whom I can practice with, going to school here’.

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via Imago

Everything is great and then the Swiss Nationals came around. I had an interview for the Swiss Tennis Magazine. Somebody asked me if I could imagine going to join the federation, play there and go live there full-time. I’m like, Actually I could, my parents read the piece and they’re like, But you told us six months ago that you are not interested.

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Then I’m like, Well, I guess I have changed my opinion, so let’s look at it, what’s the positives in going there and (what were the) negatives. We put all in the mix and to me it seemed like there was more positives than negatives and if my dream was really to become a professional tennis player, maybe I should do it, even though I had a great set up in Basel and at home.

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When he went there, he admitted that it was very exciting and scary in some ways. But he boiled it down to the fact that he was only 14 years old. Federer stayed with a foster family on weekdays and only came home on the weekends. He confessed that the first six months of training was very taxing on him.

It certainly seems that all that training and hardship paid off and made him into the player that he is now.

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Written by:

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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