At the end of a tough and somewhat sobering tennis year, at least by his standards, Roger Federer will now have a grand total of five full weeks off the circuit.
After a first quarter of 2008 affected by his bout of mononucleosis, he finished as runner-up to Rafael Nadal at both the French Open and Wimbledon, and lost in the quarter-finals of the Olympic singles to James Blake. Federer salvaged a sub-par season by winning the Olympic doubles with Swiss pal Stanislas Wawrinka followed by a fifth consecutive victory at the US Open.
He, as well as Nadal and Novak Djokovic, spent much of the year bemoaning the heavy workload of tournaments, partly caused by the Beijing Olympics. But now, after being eliminated by Andy Murray in the round-robin phase of last week's Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai, he played an exhibition event on Tuesday with James Blake, John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
That cut into the first week of his off-season and he will do the same in six weeks when he plays the grandly-named Capitala World Tennis Championships exhibition in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirites, from January 1-3.
That big-bucks affair, organized by his management firm IMG, and including Nadal, Murray, Blake, Nikolay Davydenko and Andy Roddick, removes part of another week from his off-season. So what could have been seven full weeks of no competitive tennis is down to five.
Add to that the fact that Federer plans to play the Doha (Qatar) ATP event from January 5-11, and then the Kooyong exhibition in Melbourne the week before the Australian Open begins on January 19, and the mighty Swiss has a remarkably full dance card heading into the year's first Grand Slam. (Note: He skipped Doha the past two years after winning it in 2005 and 2006.)
Yours truly, and many tennis aficionados, are concerned about the No. 2-ranked Federer because he is the most valuable commodity in the sport. Having him around is vital to the game.
As has been shown over and over again, tennis fans develop a greater affection for, and appreciation of, superstar players as they get older. It was that way with Rod Laver, John McEnroe, Ivan Lendl, Jimmy Connors, Boris Becker, Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi.
At 27, Federer is a tennis generation older than most of his most serious challengers – ranging from Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (23), to Nadal (22), to Djokovic and Murray (21), as well to a trio of 20-year-olds – Juan Martin del Potro, Marin Cilic and Ernests Gulbis.
The ideal situation for tennis would be to have him in the mix for another five years while he first equals the Sampras record of 14 career Grand Slam titles and then breaks it, all the while remaining competitive with the younger studs on the tour.
For that reason, it seems unwise for him to be starting out 2009 with such an ambitious schedule, particularly because he was bothered by a back problem during his last two tournaments this year – the Paris Indoors and the Masters Cup.
But understanding Federer's rationale is not always easy. Why, with such a crowded calendar, would he have added the ATP event in Stockholm to his 2008 fall season when that would have meant he had Davis Cup less than two weeks after the US Open, followed by two weeks off, followed four consecutives weeks in Stockholm, Madrid, Basle (his hometown) and Paris?
What sense was there to adding Stockholm to his fall schedule in a year that was already super-charged and at a time when, logically, he should have been winding down with fewer, not more, tournaments?
Of course, he ended up pulling out of Stockholm, citing fatigue, and, after reconsidering his fall commitments, ended up being a semi-finalist in Madrid (lost to Murray), won in Basel and then withdrew from Paris after two matches with the back ailment.
So only time will tell how his busy pre-Australian Open plans will affect his drive to achieve a record-tying 14th Grand Slam, maybe even as early as February 1, the day of next year's men's final at Melbourne Park.
Tuesday in Kuala Lumpur, after defeating Blake 7-6 (10-7 in a match tiebreak), he said, “It has been a tough season with lots of travelling and I could just sleep for a month.”
But reading Federer's innermost feelings is a challenge. For example, on Monday he said, "While I would also love to beat Pete Sampras's Grand Slam record of 14 titles, and also to regain my No. 1 ranking, I place winning another Wimbledon title above all else."
Even above winning Roland Garros, the one title separating him from consecration in the pantheon of all-time greats? How do you say, “I don't believe that” in Swiss German?
