Roger Federer is not one of the French Open favorites, says Corretja
The former world no. 2 Alex Corretja commented on Roger Federer's chances in the French Open. The Spaniard believes that winning the title will be difficult for the Swiss, who has returned to Paris for the first time in four years. “You can’t say never because it’s Roger," Corretja told Reuters. "In my opinion, he’s not one of the favourites because there’s a lot of guys who can hurt his game on the clay. I always thought that serve and volleying on a hot day on clay almost has more reward than on a grass court sometimes because the ball jumps out of the strike zone. I don’t think he has in his mind winning the French Open, he will just go there day by day and whatever he does it will be a bonus. Whether it’s two, three, four or five matches, it will help him arrive at Wimbledon with more rhythm."
In an interview to GQ Magazine, Arnaud di Pasquale recalled his four-set win over Federer in the bronze medal match in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. The Frenchman was asked if he saw that Federer would be that successful in the future. "Everybody knew it. Not until the point of winning 20 Grand Slams, but we knew that he had some of them on his racket. It depends only on him. That was one of the last matches where he got angry. Then he realized that if he wanted to get to the top, he had to be on the top 30 (he was no. 43 in the ATP Rankings). He won his maiden career-title in 2001, then Wimbledon in 2003. Tennis-wise, he was very strong. Our match was not good in terms of the game, there were many issues, stress, emotions... Both of us were very tense. There were some nice points, but it was not nice overall, I saw the highlights not much time ago. Federer was crying towards the end, he was overwhelmed by the disappointment. But it's still during those Olympics that he met his wife. Four children from then, no thanks yet!"
from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/2JUxKOH
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