Welcome to Florida Week! As the tours head southeast for the Miami Open, TENNIS.com and Baseline will feature all things Sunshine State. You’ll learn about the personalities, stories, teams and venues that have made Florida one of the tennis capitals of the world. We’ll also be reporting from the Miami Open in Key Biscayne.
As you’ll learn this week, when it comes to tennis, Florida isn’t just a state—it’s a state of mind.
KEY BISCAYNE, Fla.—Roger Federer has entered a new phase of his career, one of a 35-year-old father of four that's still winning major tennis tournaments. Fresh off a title run at Indian Wells, the world No. 6 has arrived in Miami and will only accumulate additional ranking points, as he’s not defending any from last year.
In 2016, the Swiss was scheduled to face Juan Martin del Potro in a star-studded opener in Crandon Park. By the hands of fate, or desires from the tennis gods, the two crowd favorites could meet in the third round this year. (Federer will need to defeat a qualifier or Kontantin Kravchuk first, to uphold his end of the bargain.)
Federer isn’t focusing on the future, though. He is, however, reflecting on the past. A lot has been made of his early 2017 comparing to his dominant 2006, which was the last time he won both the Australian Open and Indian Wells titles.
"At 25 I was winning 90 percent of my matches," Federer said today, when asked to compare the two years. "You also play many more tournaments so you're racing from one to the next. It was an incredible experience being able to keep that level of play for so long at such a high level."