Roger Federer was one of my idols, says Auger-Aliassime
In an interview to Site Tenis News, the 18-year-old Canadian Felix-Auger Aliassime indicated Jo-Wilfried Tsonga as his biggest idol. But the list is a long one. "There are also [Rafael] Nadal, [Roger] Federer and [Novak] Djokovic", said Auger-Aliassime, who broke a huge milestone last month. "Every time you speak about your idols, you have to mention them. As a kid J thought: "How, he (Tsonga) looks like me and he is cool". I do not like to get into these racist topics, but tennis is big because it doesn't matter where you come from, what language you speak or where your parents are. I think it should be the same for any part or our life. It's surprising to see players enjoying themselves together and not think too much about these details. Now we have a Serb (Laslo Djere) and Tunisian (Malek Jaziri) and it's surprising to see this mixture. It's an amazing thing to live. Tennis is one of the best sports where you can learn diversity. From my point of view, I am very young but I was able to travel a lot, I was lucky to be an athlete in such a global sport, I had to adapt to the several conditions and things, but for me that's bigger than tennis because I could see things I would have never seen if I competed in another sport or be a student, it made me opened my mind and eyes to things that are not at home, which leaves me open to what's happening in the world and reflect on it."
Asked how tennis will be in the next five or ten years, Aliassime replied: "Very physical, very fast, explosive. You see all the young guys who are doing so well, including Denis [Shapovalov], [Stefanos] Tsitsipas [Alex] De Minaur is very strong and fast too."
from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/2J4HJkM
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