Verdasco: Older players need to be mentally tough to succeed on tour

Fernando Verdasco, who has reached the final in Dubai, says that commitment is a big reason for the success of the older players.

“I think it's about everything,” said Verdasco, who beat Gael Monfils in the quarterfinals and Robin Haase in the semis. “I think the medicine, physiotherapy treatments for recovery—I think everything together [is] what makes the player have [a] longer career. Roger [Federer] or Feliciano Lopez, or myself or [David] Ferrer, many of us [have] still been able to be in the top—some Top 10, some Top 20, some Top 30.

"[We’ll] keep trying to beat the young guys.“

The 33-year-old Spaniard reached the semifinals at the 2009 Australian Open, losing a classic contest against Rafael Nadal that lasted four hours and 14 minutes. He has won seven titles, and reached the Top 10 in 2009.

It takes a mental effort, he added—not just physical fitness.

“If you don't have the motivation,” he said, “and you are consistent and you practice, and you give everything you can, every day is even impossible to be there because the medicine or the physiotherapy is not magic. At the end, you have to run and you have to win, and you have to stay mentally tough. It's so, so complicated.”