Younger players are taking things from Roger Federer, says Wilander
In an interview to EFE, the seven-time Grand Slam winner Mats Wilander commented on the competition between the younger and older players. The Swede said: "It is starting, a generational change. Now players like Tsitsipas, Khachanov are different to the older ones. They took things from Roger Federer, they play with the passion that Rafa Nadal always had and they have the competitiveness of Novak Djokovic and they are emotionally more like him, they have ups and down. They grew up seeing them and I think tennis will be very interesting in the next ten years, despite the big three will not be there."
On David Ferrer's retirement from professional tennis, Wilander added: "I do not know if i can say that he was not the most talented. He had another kind of talent and great hands. But the most impressive things was to realize his height, he was shorter than me, and with that height he played on all the surfaces against the best guys and it's unbelievable. Seeing him live, seeing him wanting to play tennis through his attidude. Being competitive is always unbelievable but it's about winning. He had a different attitude, he had charisma, connection with people. He was the people's champion because we saw him as a normal person, a normal player with a normal height."
On how injuries can affect a player, Wilander concluded: "Rafa Nadal had physical problems. It depends on yourself. Physical issues are in general related each other depending on how you behave emotionally. On that, Rafa Nadal is not 100 per cent involved. The same seems for Bianca Andreescu. She is ready to die on the tennis court."
from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/2Jwlyni
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