Roger Federer explains keys behind Tomas Berdych's great comeback
In recent times several over 30 years old top players like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Stan Wawrinka, Andy Murray took a long break from tennis in order to recover from injuries.
In 2016, Federer stopped competing for six months due to a knee and back injuries. Once he came back to play, he won two Grand Slam titles in the same year. Tomas Berdych is making a great return too, having reached the Doha Open final and Australian Open third round so far. Federer said: 'I think every sport has somewhat of an offseason. We have two but you can't count it like that. Let's not talk scheduling during this tournament. There's no point, no perfect solution there too. What I think is good about our sport is it is sort of going all year round. If you do get injured, you can jump back into it and you don't have to wait another five months because there is no tournament going on. I think there is very much positives about our long schedule that we have. I think when you have been on the tour like Berdych and myself, played full seasons for many, many years, and you take a long break off – Rafa has had them, injuries, mostly they come through injuries naturally.
I think it just gives the body a chance to sort of heal itself and maybe also the mind to take a step back. And when you come back to the tour, you see the guys and you step in the press room, the way you deal with, I don't know, you know, the pressure, all of a sudden you see things a bit either more clear or more relaxed instead of, you know, there are so many trees that you can't see anymore where you're at. I think all of a sudden it's much more clear, and I hope that Tomas is there now, and I think that's maybe also why he's playing well. You know, minor tweaks and adjustments can make a big difference at the end of the day in our sport. The margins are super slim. So it will be interesting to follow those guys who do tend to take a bigger break. It's just hard because your ranking is always because we have a one-year rolling ranking, you know how it is, it's just a tough one because your ranking is going to drop. And if you don't play well when you do come back, then you'll be in no man's land in the ranking and pay the price dearly for it. Can you always come back to the top 10 or 20? It's not always a guarantee. You have to be very confident in maybe making that decision.'
ALSO READ: Rafael Nadal: Worse players than David Ferrer won a Grand Slam title
from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/2RbQw3o
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