How fitting - Roger Federer standing next to a crown! Great to see him looking happy after having to struggle with a death threat from a stupid person over the last few days. Word has it the culprit has apologized to the tournament and to Roger and his family. I guess people don't understand the power of the internet these days! With that cleared up, hopefully Roger can focus on playing some great tennis this week.
The draw is out and once again Roger is on the same half as Murray. I at first was frustrated by this, as it seems the harder draw, but since Berdych is on Djokovic's side that is one that also could have been troubling. After a first round bye his first few rounds should be fairly doable unless he is particularly rusty after not having played for a few weeks. Of course a win at this tournament would be awesome, but just seeing him play again when we weren't sure it would happen this week will be great. Hopefully he can at least stay in there long enough to hold onto #1 to make it to 300 weeks!!!
Here is another picture of him at a Rolex exhibit he toured. Glad he's getting out and about in spite of the heightened security.
On another note, I have been enjoying some of the tennis going on this weekend, particularly in Tokyo. The match between Murray and Raonic was a great one. I have never seen Raonic play so well, being aggressive, coming forward. He came from a break down in the 3rd set, saved a couple match points, and went on to win in the tiebreak. And Nishikori is playing inspired tennis to give the Japanese their first finalist at this tournament. Should be an interesting final. And then there is also Azarenka-Sharapova and Djokovic-Tsonga. Not too bad of a tennis weekend for lower level tournaments!
I'm sure all true Federer fans have been holding their breath waiting for his announcement one way or the other regarding the Shanghai tournament that starts next week. It came today via Facebook: "Looking forward to going back to China and
playing in the Shanghai Rolex Masters. I have always enjoyed China and I
can't wait to see my great Chinese fans again. See you soon!"
When he put the following picture on Facebook a few days ago that said "back in the gym" I thought it might mean he was playing, but wanted to hear it for sure.
Though I am always pretty curious when I'm not sure whether he will decide to follow through on a tournament he's scheduled for when he's been extra busy, this one had a lot of significance due to where things stand with the ranking points. Roger is currently 1,335 points ahead of Novak Djokovic in the 52 week ranking system. He also, as of today, has a record 298 weeks at #1. With Novak playing the 500 level tournament this week in Beijing he could cut that down to 885 points if he wins the tournament, which is probably pretty likely with the field he's playing against. Roger needs to play Shanghai if he wants to be sure to hang onto #1 and make it to at least 300 weeks.
Novak is feeling pretty motivated to get the year end ranking, which he certainly has a pretty good chance at being he doesn't have many points to defend from last year, whereas Roger won everything he played, including the 1,500 point World tour Finals. He would have to be playing his absolute best and be incredibly motivated to achieve all that again. But hey, we're talking about Roger Federer, so it all remains to be seen!
Next week is suddenly looking quite exciting to me!
