Today, we have some exciting news for our readers. One of our partner sites, TennisAssist.com, has confirmed an interview with one of tennis greatest players, John Newcombe.
Overall, John has won 26 Grand Slam major titles in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles. Every reader has the opportunity to have your questions answered by John himself. A former ATP player Peter Tramacchi will be interviewing John on the 14th of August.
To submit your question place a comment on this blog post. If you like – provide us your Name and What country and Area you are from so Pete can introduce your personal question to John. Also if relevant mention your age. For example – You might ask about Nerves and how he felt before a Grand Slam Final, you might like to ask about improving your game – and if so include your standard and age. How about a question about Federer winning the recent Grand Slams?
On Sunday May 10th, Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka gave an interview to a Swiss newspaper. Here an extract translated from German:
Mr Wawrinka, how is it possible, that even though you have had a lot of success over the past few months, you can still walk around in Zurich almost unrecognized?
Wawrinka: Well for the people a quarter or half final victory in a big tourney is not that important.
But the Swiss people’s interest for tennis is bigger than ever, isn’t it?
Wawrinka: Yes, but since Federer won almost everything over the past 4, 5 years winning just became like “normal”.
Are you upset about this?
Wawrinka: I just think it is a shame. People don’t recognize the performances of other athletes anymore. We do not have a lot of professional sportsmen in Switzerland, and therefore the encouragement of the public is even more important. But everything is just about Federer. For the people it doesn’t matter what we others are doing. Everybody just thinks it is easy to win, because Federer kept on winning and winning. They can’t imagine how difficult it actually is only to be in the Top 50 of the World!
If Switzerland hadn’t Federer would you be a Star?
Wawrinka: (Laughs) Yeah, maybe. But my goal is just to do my best. that is all that counts.
Federer’s Fitness Coach Pierre Paganini has been interviewed by a Swiss newspaper about Federer’s fitness and shape. Here a translation:
- Mr. Paganini, what’s going on with Federer? What is he doing?
Paganini: At the moment we give him some time to recover. We intensified the work with his physio therapist. But to make it clear once and for all: Federer is not injured. What we are doing is pure prophylaxis. We are working for the next two weeks in Dubai. Roger also flew in two sparring partners to be able two work on the court.
-Was Federer a 100% fit in Melbourne?
Paganini: Well we have to go further back for this. Roger got injured last November. His injury is cured. Everything was ok in Melbourne. But with so many matches it is not easy to recover 100%. He wasn’t impeded in his game. But it meant a lot of stress, the journey, the pressure, etc., so the body’s reaction in a stressfull situation and during a normal traning is not the same. He felt it, and that’s why we have decided to take a break in order to prevent other injuries from occuring.
-What did you learn from it? Do you have to change something?
Paganini: Well we understood that we have to spend even more time doing physical preparation. This is the priority between the tournaments. Roger wants to pay attention to his body in order to be able to manage those stressfull situations.
- Does that mean that he is going to play fewer tournaments?
Paganini: No, it simplyn means to plan in a different way, manage the time differently. We have to organise ourselves even better in order to be able to do a proper physical education wherever Roger is.
- Roger is not going to play the Davis Cup. As a Swiss man it must hurt you, but as a fitness coach you must think that it is right.
Paganini: As a fitness coach I always should be against it whenever it concerns the body. You have to recognize that if he would be playing Davis Cup he’d be playing as the team leader. He’d play Friday, Saturday and Sunday non stop. That’s just a lot for your body. Roger is like a jewel. And he knows that it would just be too risky.
Let’s hope then that he recovers soon see we can see some great tennis again…
