What’s the Word, Roger: Federer Chats Ahead of Indian Wells Return

World No. 1 and five-time BNP Paribas Open champion Roger Federer sat down with reporters on Thursday ahead of his opener at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. Below are some highlights from the Swiss’ press powwow:

On whether it’s true what they say, that it’s lonely at the top…

“When you’re at the top, probably what they’re trying to maybe say is that everybody’s watching what you’re doing extra carefully, so you maybe go into sort of a shell to some extent because you don’t want people to know your magic formula — if there is any. As you’re riding the wave and have momentum, you want to maintain that as long as possible, so some of us do tend to go into a bubble, I guess. I try to never really go there.”

On his philanthropic efforts…

“I’m very passionate about my foundation because it’s been 15 years in the running now. In the beginning, I was inspired by all the great athletes who ran their own foundations. Coming up on the tour, we had UNICEF as an ATP Tour partner, then becoming a Goodwill Ambassador, then letting that go and focusing on my own foundation. I thought it was very important to give back, to have an impact in people’s lives. Our foundation believes in learning empowerment, early childhood education, school readiness. Having my own children now, seeing how they go through the whole educational part, I feel education can break the circle of poverty.”

On getting emotional while accepting the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year and World Comeback of the Year Awards…

“You don’t get an opportunity, this big of a stage, in front of such amazing athletes and former athletes as well to give thanks to your team and your family. It was a big moment in my career again. Getting the Comeback award — that was what it was almost all about for me. The comeback that I did have last year was so special. I guess it brought back the memories from last season, which were absolutely amazing.”

On the ramp-up of athleticism in tennis…

“I guess we had to become, across the board, better movers from the baseline. Maybe back in the day we had better movers up and back, serve and volley. That also is good footwork. It’s not easy to serve and volley for five hours. It takes a lot out of you. That’s what everybody used to do back in the day. Now I just think we’re better athletes side to side because with racquet technology, string technology, we’re able to find crazier angles at faster speeds. You have to cover more court. You have to adjust according to it. Tournament directors have a say on how it’s played with court speed, the tour deciding on how the rankings get structured. If you had a ranking that was based on only a certain amount of tournaments, like back in the day, you’d start avoiding your weakest surface. You had more slow-court specialists, fast-court specialists. I believe the best movers were always the best players in the game, but even more so today the best players in the game have become the best movers. Movement has become a major key to success in our game today.”

On a possible changing of the guard…

“We’re just going through a bit of an unfortunate period right now where a lot of guys are injured. The players touching 30 are having niggling injuries or more than that and have to wait it out a little bit. It gives other guys an opportunity to win bigger tournaments, like what we saw with Grigor [Dimitrov] in Cincinnati and the ATP Finals. But I remember in the beginning when I was coming up, there was definitely the sense of the changing of the guard, the transition with Agassi and Pete still around, and Moya and Henman. The young guys being very strong were Lleyton and Safin and Roddick, myself, Ferrero, Tommy [Haas], Kiefer. I think there was such a big wave back then, maybe it was a #NextGen. Now it sort of feels like a changing of the guard, but I think it’s not quite accurate because the other guys are mostly injured, Stan and Novak, Rafa and so forth.”