Roger Federer says that regaining the No. 1 ranking from Rafael Nadal is one of his priorities.
"At the moment it is in a big way,” said Federer, the second seed at Indian Wells. "It's part of my big goals for the year to try and get back to world No. 1."
Federer said that breaking Pete Sampras' record of total weeks at No. 1 at 286 is not his motivation. The Swiss is currently one week short of tying the mark.
"I like being world No.1 [rather than] than 2."
Federer also said that it doesn’t bother him that for the first time since June of 2003, he isn’t holding one of the four Grand Slam titles.
"You accept the fact the others played well and maybe you could have done better. It wasn’t that bad—I made two quarters and two semis. I should have made the final of the [U.S.] Open and had chances elsewhere. I didn't play the best of my life last summer and I was hoping to win the tournaments, but Berdych [who beat him at Wimbledon] and Soderling [who beat him at Roland Garros] played clutch tennis when they had to. The last two [losses] against Novak [Djokovic] were close. I consider the one against Novak close in Australia close as well even though the score doesn’t suggest that, but he knows how close it was. I think I’ve been playing really well. I didn’t make the finals of the last four Grand Slams, but I've still been very consistent."—Matthew Cronin