Roger Federer playing on clay in 2019 surprised me, says pundit
In an interview to SRF the former Swiss Fed Cup team captain Peter Gunthardt commented on Roger Federer's decision to play the clay-court season. At the moment the only tournament confirmed is the French Open but the 37-year-old is set to add one or two events to his schedule. 'It surprised me', admitted Günthardt speaking to SRF. 'I was a little bit disappointed that he did not play last year.'
On the differences between grass and clay, Günthardt added: 'The footwork is different. It depends on your feelings how hard and how far you can slide. Clay-courts specialists play with a lot of top spin. This is not necessarily for Roger's game. He will have to be more patient and run more. He needs to try not to play the classic clay-court tennis. So this is how he can be competitive.'
Severin Luthi and Ivan Ljubicic, Federer's two coaches, did not basically make any quote during the Australian Open. Instead, Serena Williams's coach Patrick Mouratoglou spoke a lot to the reporters and he reflected on his coaching during year's US Open final: "Only in the Grand Slams it’s not allowed, I think this needed to be said. You are right, I don’t know if it was emotional, but clearly, she [Serena] was a bit lost during that match and I felt like I had to do make I could to help', said Mouratoglou. 'And that’s not allowed but on the other side it’s tolerated because the coaches are doing it at the matches almost every day, we all know that. If it’s not too obvious the Chair Umpire lets it happen, and if it becomes too obvious, in general, he tells the player, “please tell your coach to slow down otherwise I am going to have to warn you”. So to answer your question, and it’s a very difficult question, how can you give a warning to a coach as he doesn’t risk anything – maybe it should be the case – I don’t know. More than that, it should be consistent."
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from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/2RLp8OI
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