Roger Federer – “I Believe I Can Actually Beat The Best”

A masterclass performance was delivered by Roger Federer on London’s O2 Arena to defeat one of the best tennis players in the world. With his latest victory, the Swiss maestro snapped his six-match losing streak against Novak Djokovic and embraced his first win against the Serb since his comeback in 2017.

“A victory like tonight against Novak, at my age, almost counts double because if I’m still on tour, it’s because I believe I can actually beat the best. I have to prove to myself that I can do that. If I never beat them, like, I haven’t beaten Novak in a few years now. Even though I came close in Paris-Bercy and Wimbledon, it’s still not winning, it’s losing and was a slim margin,” said Roger Federer.

He accomplished one of the biggest wins of 2019 tennis season, also Roger Federer assured the year-end number one spot to Rafael Nadal and he himself sailed into the semifinals of ATP World Tour Finals 2019.

“Yeah, I keep believing. Press try to remind me a million times about the Wimbledon match,” the Swiss added. “I can’t look back or think negative because I lost the Wimbledon match against him. We got to keep moving forward,” Federer expounded his bitter defeat Djokovic in London this July.

On Thursday, Roger Federer came up with a dozen aces and won 81% of the points from his first serve. “The serve stats are clearly key to either hang with him or beat him,” Federer said. “I did that in Paris. I did that in Wimbledon. Actually, I hardly got broken in those matches, too, and again tonight. So against Novak, it seems to work well on my serve. It’s just a matter of sometimes having better returning days,” the Swiss legend explained.

He got seven opportunities to break Djokovic’s serve and was successful thrice. Playing sublime tennis throughout the match, Federer committed just five unforced errors and slammed 12 winners. Federer gave a tough time to Djokovic while returning his serves with his vintage style tennis. He saved the only break point which the Serb faced by attacking the ball in a classic manner. 

“I have played a lot of tennis in career. So I think, I really know and feel where’s my game is out through, my fitness and through my practices as well, where nobody is watching but of course some press and some fans and they only judge you on the match situations, and it’s fair enough. But for me, there is much more which goes into it,” he said.

World Number three, Roger Federer will play the first semifinal match of ATP World Tour Finals 2019 on Saturday (2 pm GMT) and his opponent is yet to be determined.