Legendary icon Roger Federer has weighed in on how tennis has evolved throughout the years and the direction of the sport.
The 20-time major winner is currently in Berlin for the Laver Cup, a tournament in which he was one of the main figureheads behind its establishment and continual growth.
At the 2022 Laver Cup, Federer announced his retirement in emotional scenes accompanied by barely a dry eye at London's O2 Arena.
Now having a chance to dissect the game from a fan perspective, the 43-year-old highlighted the strengths of what makes modern-day players the best in the world.
"The guys and also the ladies are going to start hitting bigger forehands and backhands, be more fearless because they realise the reward is there," Federer said.
"The best movers are the best players and you can see that. The mentally fittest, physically strongest and fastest are the best players.
"It’s not so much about technique any more. I’ve got fooled enough in the last 10, 15, 20 years where I think, ‘I’m not sure about this technique,’ but with racket technology and string technology, you can iron those problems out and so long as you hit hard and nice through the ball, everything is possible in tennis to be honest.
"The game is where it was, but just a step higher. I always feel like it keeps on going up."
In February this year, the top-10 of the ATP rankings did not feature a player with a one-handed backhand for the first time in 51 years when the rankings were introduced.
Federer was a genius when it came to mastering the single-handed backhand, but believes coaching mentors are mainly responsible for shifting the trend.
"I guess a lot of it comes from coaching. Two things: It would be great to have world No.1 and world No.2 with the one-hander, which we don’t have right now so that’s not going to inspire the generation of playing with the one-hander," Federer explained.
"Juniors tend to look towards the best players in the world and if you see the double-hander then you think that is the way moving forward even though it might not be, and then I just think it’s the coaches around the world who might realise some players play better with a one-hander rather than a two-hander.
"Do you ever take your hand off the double-hander? That’s the question. The coach needs to know and the player needs to have the urge to try it out like I did.
"I do think for sure the one-handed backhand still has a space in the modern game. You can fight so much more with the double-hander on the return and in defence, while maybe the one-hander can be a lot more difficult.
"What I’m also seeing nowadays is double-handed players have a much better slice as well which I feel was not always the case 20 years ago when I came on Tour.
"[It will] be interesting to see. [It would] be sad to see less and less one-handers."
Comments