One assumes that Swiss misters Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka truly put their spat from Saturday's semifinal match at the ATP World Tour Finals behind them.

While it's never wise to assume, it would seem unfathomable otherwise that Federer would say what he did about Wawrinka on Monday: “Stan should have finished that match at 5-3. I wouldn’t have had a back problem and we wouldn’t have had the situation we had.”

Wawrinka wasted four match points in the encounter, a three-set match that lasted two to three times as long as other match-ups in the London O2 Arena showdown's round-robin phase. Despite his countryman's responses to Mirka Federer's seeming provocations during some of the tense match's most heart-pounding moments, Federer seemed to have honestly set aside the dispute after a side conversation with Wawrinka in an O2 Arena gym directly after the match.

He reserved far more harsh words for the match's chair umpire, however, telling BBC correspondent Russell Fuller, "The umpire is not allowed to do an interview in the first place. If he mentions my wife’s name or not, it doesn’t matter."

Wawrinka also critiqued the umpire, Cedric Mourier, for letting the match get out of hand, and for biffing a call in the third set that likely aided him in taking a game from Federer: "I don’t think the umpire was doing great job. As you can see also at the beginning of the third set with the overrule and everything [when Mourier mistakenly changed a linesman's call but Federer failed to hear his intervention, causing a separate argument], it was quite a mess already."

The sometimes doubles partners' comments above were a lot more intriguing and ripe for analysis than the Swiss Davis Cup team's complete dud of a press conference in Lille ahead of the event's championship.

Advertising

Advertising

Mourier, a Frenchman, couldn't have known what was coming when he alighted upon his chair for the dramatic match in London. Now his compatriots, the French Davis Cup squad, have the good pleasure—or perhaps the impending fate—of facing off against a Swiss team that is, for once, as red-faced as its flag. Not out of embarrassment, but as a result of angry energy just waiting to be unbridled.

Got a tip or a point to make? Hit me on Twitter at @jonscott9.