After his loss against Daniel Brands in Gstaad, Roger Federer gave an interview to Heinz Günthardt, a former pro and a commentator for Swiss TV. Federer talked about his back problems and his plans for the near future.
Roger Federer, people talked a lot about your back
problems during the last few days, and they were also the main topic at
the press conference. How did these problems affect your game?
The impact was perhaps not as great as one could have expected; I was
able to play without feeling hardly any pain. That’s why it was probably
more about tennis than about my back. It’s true that we talked a lot
about my back at the press conference, but that was primarily because I
was going through a bit of a bad patch during the last 7 or 10 days. I
never really got to practice without any problems; some days I wasn't
even able to train at all and it was therefore difficult to deliver a
top performance. I knew that the match against Brands wouldn't
be an easy one. I was glad that I was able to play at all – for quite
some time, it hadn't looked as though that would even be possible. But
after today’s practice I told myself “Yes, I’m fit enough to play this
match.” That’s why there’s no other excuse than that my match
preparation wasn't ideal. In the end, Brands was just the better player
today.
It was obvious today that you tried to go up to the net
from the very beginning of the match. Did your back problems have an
influence on your tactics?
Not really. I’d already told Marco
(Chiudinelli) that you need to play offensively and move up to the net
as it’s hard to play passing shots and returns at this altitude. I tried
to go up to the net as often as possible so that I wouldn't have to
work so much defensively. My tactics were actually OK; I just wasn't
able to put them into action. That’s also one of the reasons why I lost
this match.
The fact that you’re not 100% fit also impacts your schedule. How are you going to tackle the next few weeks?
We’ll need to consider and discuss a lot of things. The focus will be
on making my back better so that I’ll finally be able to really
concentrate on my training and don’t have to constantly think “What is
it now? My back doesn't seem to be OK.” I’d like to again be able to
practice as hard and as well as I did before the tournament in Hamburg.
At the time, I was extremely motivated and in high spirits and I was
really looking forward to all that was to come. And then the pain in my
back came creeping back – I’ll need to see how I can get out of this. I
still don’t know whether I’ll be playing in Montreal – I have one more
week to decide. I’ll now draw up a schedule and see what I can do for my
back and practice-wise. Then everything will be happening very quickly,
but I’ll have to take it from day to day.
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