Roger Federer Put Off by Match Timings at Australian Open 2019?

Swiss tennis star, Roger Federer was ousted from Australian Open 2019 by Greek sensation Stefanos Tsitsipas.

Following the shock defeat, He spoke about several topics and even praised the Greek star. He also made the surprising decision not to skip the clay court season. While at the Australian Open, he often played during the night to avoid the hotter conditions. However, on rare occasions, he would play during the day, when the conditions were cooler than usual.

When asked about the transition from day to night, the world No. 3 said: ‘I think for me nowadays I go in phases where sometimes I don’t see day matches for a long time, you know, especially Dubai, let’s just say, the matches are always at night.’

He further clarified, “I mean, for the top guys- here with the semis and finals and quarters, if you play well here you’re always going to see three, four, night session matches, same thing. And Indian Wells, Miami, they are also 50/50 spread out.

The Swiss tennis ace continued, “Next thing you know, by the time you hit the clay, where there are no more clay court matches, you have played 70 per cent maybe in the night, and the weird thing is we never practice at night. You know, we’re always, you know, for schedule, just easy to play during the daytime.”

Federer reminisced to a time early on in his career where he played in America a lot. He reckoned that the time change to Europe probably affected him. For him, playing till 1:00 in the afternoon was a bit of a change. According to him, at his age he needs extra warm up and extra practice to really perform to the best of his ability at 1:00 pm.

Speaking about his loss to Tsitsipas, he said,

“Yeah, I mean, look, conditions also changed throughout the match like every year when you start at 7, go into the night. It gets harder to go through the opponent. Yeah, I thought conditions were definitely a bit slower this year than last year. Didn’t allow for as much variation, to be quite honest.”

“But he did a nice job of taking care of his half volleys. That’s maybe what won him the match tonight, I’m not sure.”