Party-weary Federer looks to the future
Wimbledon’s the goal as Swiss veteran suddenly appears far from a spent force
Roger Federer turned the tennis clock back a decade on Sunday, to the era when he was almost invincible. But what does his dramatic resurgence mean for the rest of 2017? There should at least be some collateral benefit in the shape of extra excitement and intrigue around Wimbledon.
We can take it for granted that Federer will not be adding a 19th Grand Slam title in Paris, for his record on clay was patchy even when he was younger. In Melbourne, the unusually slick courts enabled him to maintain an average rally length of around three shots, whereas attritional matches on the red stuff will only sap his energy.
But on the grass of SW19, Federer remains a serious threat, as he has shown by reaching the final in three of the past five years. Already level with Pete Sampras and William Renshaw on seven Wimbledon titles, he would no doubt love to surge ahead.
Asked where his best chance of repeating his wonderful fortnight in Melbourne might come, Federer replied: “Yeah, Wimbledon over Roland Garros yes. Then the US Open? I don’t know.
“I’ve got months to reflect now on everything,” Federer added, as he paraded the trophy following his fiveset victory over Rafael Nadal the day before.
“I’ll probably take like a week at least off to see how I feel. Then my next tournaments are Dubai [which starts in three weeks], Indian Wells, Miami, and then I haven’t planned the clay-court season yet but I’ll probably do that midway through Indian Wells or something.
“Then on the grass I’ve got a lot of tournaments there, I play Stuttgart and Halle. So I guess Wimbledon, I know I have a better shot there [than on the clay].
“At the French Open, if you’re not in the draw, you can’t win it so I hope to be in the draw this year, not like last year. US Open — actually I also think I have a good chance to do well there. But let’s enjoy this one first.”
Federer had been up all night, dancing until dawn.
“We started late, or super early in the morning,” Federer said. “We made it home by sunrise, which was good. It was nice to see the sun rise over Melbourne, get into the room, so it was a long night but a lot of fun. Everyone was in such a good mood, it was a special day, special couple of weeks and finished off in a great way, being silly and having a lot of fun. Forgetting about everything, all the pressure went away.
“I don’t know how much I slept, but you know I had to look at some highlights again to know how close the match was, and go through the emotions again. What makes me most happy is when I see my friends and family so happy, my support team, everybody who was there.
“When I saw them celebrating again it really made it emotional, when I heard people in Switzerland were following me and I saw people being really happy for me, that I won a slam again and particularly this one. It’s a bit of a fairytale to come back this way.
“On so many levels I felt a lot of people were happy and that’s even more important than me being happy — that I was able to do it and win an 18th. But of course it was always going to be super-special beating Nadal in the final.
“And with the day now, you look around, there’s a lot of attention, a lot of media wanting to see more and hear more from you. I was aware that it was a big match but maybe not quite like this.
“This is my first slam win with the boys, they weren’t born when I won in 2012, so that’s special for Mirka and myself that I was able to do it. The girls were just super excited to see the trophy. They will probably forget one day what happened, but at the same time they were happy that I’m happy.
“I saw them this morning. As I walked in, they woke up. Bit of a weird moment but still so great because they were all in such a good mood as they woke up and I came in walking in with the trophy. It was an amazing half-hour right there.”