Seeing Federer at No. 5 in the ATP rankings is weird for all of us. God knows how he must be feeling about his tumble, especially because he was No. 1 this time last year.
Even weirder is his schedule this summer that has him playing Hamburg and Gstaad on CLAY, back-to-back. What? So many questions, so little answers, but Roger revealed one important detail about the remainder of his season and, possibly, his career: he has a new racquet!
One of the big critiques against the G.O.A.T. was the small frame of his racquet leaving him prone to wild errors should he not make precision-perfect contact with the ball. Of course, he was doing a lot of winning with his "subpar" 90-inch frame. But it goes to show that Roger will keep making adjustments and finding ways to stay at the top of the game. I was apprehensive about his summer schedule on Euroclay, but it looks like he wants to get a few matches in with his new magic wand close to home before showing it off in the States for the U.S. Open Series. Panic alert down to yellow, for now. It was a deep orange post Wimblegeddon Wednesday.
What do you guys make of Fed's upgrade? Long overdue? Grasping at straws? He's quickly fallen behind the other guys in the Big 4, so we'll see if this gets him back in the mix with Rafa, Nole, and Andy.
R.I.P. Fed's old racquet. We'll miss your shanks.
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