Roger Federer Sceptical About Winning a Slam in 2020 Owing to NextGen’s Uprising

Published 10/08/2019, 3:10 PM EDT

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World Number three, Roger Federer reflected upon the increasing competition on the ATP circuit with the new faces of tennis exercising their dominance. In their presence, the Swiss legend is unsure about his 21st Grand Slam title.      

“The NextGen have got our attention no doubt about that. It’s going to be year-end and a few guys are going to be at World Tour Finals and the next year it’s going to be hard to keep on winning all those Slams between the best guys we know. So it’s going to be interesting,” said Roger Federer.

He praised the competition revolving amongst themselves and he is delighted with the progress which they are making. “What I like is, I see big improvements now. Not like they were none beforehand, but now they are playing with the big boys. They are really able to challenge us to beat us, have good rivalries also within each other,” he added.

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Federer lauded the Greek lad, Stefanos Tsitsipas. In 2018, Tsitsipas had an excellent run on the ATP Tour. During the Rogers Cup 2018 in Canada, he became the youngest player to record four top ten wins in a single event. Also, in 2019 he dethroned the defending champion, Federer in the fourth round of Australian Open 2019.

“We didn’t think that Tsitsipas was going to come up as quick as he did. He had an unbelievable year. Now Medvedev winning is crazy, Khachanov winning in Paris, that was unexpected. Everyone has shown really good matches and some great runs. With Shapovalov, Felix and Rublev also. Obviously, Sascha was there before, Nick too,” he said.

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This amongst the new era contenders, Dominic Thiem and Stefanos Tsitsipas were able to defeat the ‘Big Three’ contenders at Grand Slams this year. Thiem halted Novak Djokovic’s 26-match winning streak at Grand Slams in Paris and Tsitsipas snapped Federer’s 17-match winning streak in Melbourne. Besides them, Daniil Medvedev made Rafael Nadal’s road to his 19th Slam arduous at US Open 2019 finals.

Further, Federer talked about his early years on the circuit and the competition that he dealt with. “I think that is important for them to improve are players because look, I remember when I was coming up and Safin, Roddick, Hewitt and Fererro and everybody. You don’t want to be the last guy in that group,” he added.

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“Sure, preferably first, but if you can’t be first of the time being, well you don’t want to be last either. So, I think it really creates good intentions to actually wanting to improve faster and I see that right now,” he said.

At Shanghai Rolex Masters 2019, Roger Federer is through to the next round with a straight-sets win over Albert Ramos Vinolas.

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Mahalakshmi Murali

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Mahalakshmi Murali joined EssentiallySports in 2018 as a tennis author and has gone on to pen more than 1800 engaging articles, probing into various aspects of the sport and its illustrious players. With her expertise on the sport, Mahalakshmi has interviewed stalwarts from the sport such as Serena WIlliams’ coach Patrick Mouratoglou and Kevin Anderson’s physio, Carlos Costa. Equipped with her vast experience and a keen understanding of the sport, Mahalakshmi now co-heads the tennis department.
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