Frances Tiafoe recognized Roger Federer’s amazing impact on the game and added that there will never be another Federer. Federer, 41, was considered tennis’s greatest icon and many credit the Swiss with taking tennis to a new level and making the game more popular.
“The impact he has had on the game is unbelievable. We will always remember Roger Federer. Because there will never be another. Nobody is going to play like him. Nobody is going to carry himself like he did. He never sweated, never had a wrinkle on his T-shirt.
I’m happy to have played against him. I’m happy I called him a friend,” Tiafoe said on the ATP Tennis Radio Podcast. At the end of September, Federer retired from professional tennis at the Laver Cup. In the last match of his career, Federer teamed up with Rafael Nadal.
In London, Federer and Nadal faced Tiafoe and Jack Sock. Tiafoe and Sock, who were representing the World Team at the Laver Cup, defeated Federer and Nadal 4-6 7-6(2) 11-9. “Playing against them, even if one of them didn’t retire, playing against them together is iconic, and like Fed’s last game.
So it’s even more iconic, and the crowd goes crazy,” Tiafoe mused. While Federer and Nadal played their match, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray supported them from the Team Europe bench. After Federer’s career officially came to an end, the Swiss and his biggest rivals got emotional.
Simon on Roger Federer
Guest of the Court N°1 podcast on RMC, the newly retired Gilles Simon, aptly nicknamed “the professor”, shared a reflection on Novak Djokovic before talking about his opposition against the Big 3.
He notably evokes his ultimately rather simplistic tactics adopted against Roger Federer, whom he managed to beat twice in nine games. “For me, tactically it was easier to play against these players because they are so strong that there are very few spaces, very few things that they do less well than others.
So in the end, there’s nothing tactically brilliant about telling yourself that when I face Roger, I’m going to try to block him on his backhand because anyway he only puts aces, in the forehand he leaves you at two meters and at the net he is comfortable.
If there is a place where you can play and breathe a little, it is on the backhand side. For this reason, it is not an incredible tactic. Where it has always been harder for me, on the other hand, is against players where I have more options, choices, before making a decision.
I asked myself a lot of questions: ‘Am I going to play attacking because when I attack there he finds it difficult to defend, but on the other hand, when I let him play here he also gives some…’ You are always a bit between two waters and it is less clear, ”explained the Niçois.