Roger Federer's coach Ivan Ljubicic speaks chess while tennis break continues

Like the entire planet, a coronavirus has halted the world of tennis at least until the end of April. In the last couple of days, we have seen many interesting tweets and posts from numerous players and coaches who are trying to stay entertained while the pandemic virus rages on, mostly staying in their homes with families. Roger Federer's coach Ivan Ljubicic shared a funny tweet about chess that will keep himself occupied in the upcoming weeks, with not much else to watch or do these days. After calling it a career in 2012, Ljubicic had stayed around tennis for a couple of years before getting a chance to work with Roger Federer at the beginning of 2016. Roger lost the final in Doha to Milos Raonic and in the semis at the Australian Open to Novak Djokovic, changing his schedule to undergo knee surgery on February 3. Ljubicic had to wait until April to join Roger on the court again but that wasn't a problem for the Croat who was eager to get Roger back to the winning way, knowing the right formula to achieve that.

The issues with the knee were even more severe and Roger had to skip the rest of the season following the semi-final defeat at Wimbledon, dropping out from the top-10 for the first time in 15 years and starting all over at the Australian Open 2017. With enough time to prepare everything, Ivan led Roger towards two Major crowns that year, conquering Melbourne after an epic win over Rafael Nadal and adding Wimbledon to his tally for the first successful season at Majors since 2012. Federer scored 54 wins from 59 matches that year, finishing second behind the Spaniard on the ATP list and pushing hard in 2018 as well, especially after defending the crown in Melbourne for the 20th and so far the last Major title.

In February, Roger became by far the oldest world no. 1 in ATP history, producing magic from his backhand like never before and battling against much younger opponents with ease. In the previous season, Federer did enough to stay in the top-3 behind Nadal and Djokovic, wasting a massive opportunity of adding another Wimbledon trophy to his collection and hoping for more good runs in the second part of 2020. Federer had to undergo knee surgery in February, setting the return date for Halle if everything goes well with a coronavirus and tennis resumes by then. 

"Chess will keep us sane (or drive us crazy) in the next period. Tomorrow,hopefully, starts Candidates tournament. Winner will face Magnus Carlsen in December for the World Champion title match. Stay home, everyone!"

from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/39Upurr