Twenty time Grand Slam champion Roger Federer has set an unquestioned legacy for Swiss tennis players, but there aren’t many in line to follow the footprints of him and Stan Wawrinka.
The Basel native believes that it is difficult to produce great players all the time from a small country like Switzerland. However, he expects at least some Swiss players to be ranked under the top 300 in the world.
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Speaking about the future of the Swiss tennis after he and Wawrinka retire from the professional tour, Roger Federer told The New York times, “I hope that after I retire and Stan retires that a new strong generation will come, but I think for a small country to some extent we have to be realistic, a little bit.”
Roger Federer has won 20 Grand Slam singles titles so far – the most in the history by a male player. Whereas his compatriot, Stan Wawrinka has done well to win three major titles, playing under his shadow. The two still remain the only Swiss in the top 100 ATP rankings. While there are three other players ranked under top 500 of the ATP rankings but none of them are under the age of 23 and hence the young Swiss players are not able to rise to the top.
The 38-year-old said: “It’s not that easy just to produce great players all the time. But I think what the goal needs to be is that at least we have a good group of guys ranked between 1 and 300. We don’t have enough in all honesty, and that needs to be addressed.”
“I’ve never felt after winning three, four, five Wimbledons that guys were picking up rackets left, right and center and going out to play tennis here in Switzerland,” Federer concluded. “To this day, I still don’t know what the numbers say.”
