MELBOURNE – He retired in 2022, and just a few months ago he found himself imagining being a professional tennis player again. Roger Federer revealed that he has put himself in the shoes of Carlos Alcaraz and Grigor Dimitrov to ask himself: what would it have been like to play against Jannik Sinner?
One of those moments happened while he was sitting in the Royal Box at Centre Court of the All England Lawn Tennis Club.
“At Wimbledon, I was in the stadium when Grigor (Dimitrov) played Jannik. I think that was one of the first times I thought, ‘What would it have been like to play a match against Jannik?’ because Grigor plays very similarly to how I used to play. That made it easy,” said the 20-time Grand Slam champion during a press conference at Melbourne Park.
He has also repeated the exercise watching Carlos Alcaraz play against the Italian.
“I feel there are more similarities in how we’d go about things — when to hit a drop shot, when to come to the net, how much to risk or when to stay more passive. I think we both like to play on our own terms. So I put myself more into Carlos’s mindset and skin,” he explained.
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Federer was the only member of the Big Three who never faced either Sinner or Alcaraz in an official match. Novak Djokovic holds a 4–6 record against the World No. 2 and 5–4 against the Spaniard, while Rafael Nadal retired with a 2–1 record against his compatriot and a 3–0 mark versus the current two-time Australian Open champion.
That said, the Swiss admitted that analyzing tennis’s biggest stars is only an occasional exercise for him.
“I love watching tennis just as a fan; it’s always been that way, unless it was my next-round opponent, in which case I would try to identify strengths and weaknesses.”
“If I went out to watch Rafa play a second-round match, I’d simply enjoy it. I think it’s important to remain a fan, not just a competitor,” Federer said, who will play for the first time as a retired player in a Grand Slam exhibition this Saturday at Rod Laver Arena.
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