Roger Federer recalls when he was told not to seek appearance fees
Roger Federer has always been known to be a master in scheduling, as he never overplayed. It paid off as at 37 years of age, after spending two decades on Tour, Federer is still able to play at the highest level.
Federer admitted that getting suggestions from the right team was the key. "I remember vividly a conversation I had after I became world No. 1, after here actually in 2004", said the world No. 3. "I got back to Switzerland, had a conversation with Pierre Paganini, my fitness coach. He said, Just do me a favour, please, and don't chase appearance fees and play every tournament. Because we got the appearance fees in the 250s and 500s. I was like, No I won't. I will try to play the best schedule possible. I will always tell you if I have an amazing guarantee, maybe I would like to play it because it's also a nice place, it works out, we can work it out beforehand. I think I can be very happy that I didn't do that. The problem is, I was 23 at the time, you don't know how long you're going to be at the top. You don't know how long you're going to see these guarantees. You don't know how long you're going to be successful. You just don't know. That's why I think a tennis player's life, it's very short-term planning. It makes it kind of difficult because we don't have a five-year deal in some club, like team sports. We have to live a very normal life, which I think keeps us very humble and normal, to be quite honest. I'm happy I was able to stay injury-free, stay true to that plan of not overplaying, taking the time off. It's hard going into a fitness build-up for five, six weeks during the season while other guys are winning tournaments. Oh, I could win maybe one or two tournaments in that spell, as well. But I'm doing it for my own game and for my own health, for the future. So, yeah, it's tricky. But I can only advise a lot of juniors and younger guys coming through to do something similar, yeah. Depends on where you come from, where you're training. It all matters a little bit."
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from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/2GatFmM
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