Roger Federer: “Rafa is Best at Returning”

World No.3, Roger Federer is known to be one of the best servers in the world as he comes third on the career aces list. Roger Federer has hit 11,150 aces in his career so far and is behind John Isner and Ivo Karlovic in the list of career aces on all surfaces.

However, the Swiss Maestro feels that the return is also very important in order to win matches. In a pre-tournament press conference at the US Open 2019, the 20-time Grand Slam champion explained how he, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic return serve differently. The Swiss also praised Nadal for having the best serve returns from the back of the court.

Federer, who is aiming to win his first US Open title since 2008 was asked at the press conference about how key the return is and how difficult it is to master.

“No returns no wins, it’s that simple,” the 38-year,-old replied.

Federer, however, feels that the serve is a bit more than return but good returns are certainly necessary to win the match. He said, “It’s probably not as important as the serve. I think still bigger serving is a bit more important but it is amazing how returning has improved in the last 20 years since I’ve started in the game.”

Roger Federer also revealed that there were some really surprising returners when he started his professional career 21 years ago. “There was really some shocking return players back in my day when I first started and now you rarely have them.”

He further continued, “Everybody can make returns at all times. I don’t think there’s really a safe place to go to when you kick serve somebody in the backend nowadays as everybody just kind of waits for it and just can make it even aggressive on it.”

Roger Federer further explicated how players have different styles of returns. He said, “It’s nice to see an improvement and you have different styles of returns. I used a slice. You take me, Rafa and Novak and we all return completely different, it is interesting.”

The Swiss concluded with using Nadal and Djokovic as prime examples to show how serves are returned differently. He said, “Rafa is the best at returning way back on the court. It is amazing the power he gets from there. Novak, how long he is and he is still able to stay aggressive.”