Roger Federer retired from tennis after the 2022 Laver Cup, but he remains an influential figure within the sport.
Federer has taken somewhat of a backseat since his retirement, but he is now back on the ATP Tour at the Laver Cup.
The team tournament is the brainchild of the Swiss legend, who won over 100 titles during his career, including 20 Grand Slams.
San Francisco’s Chase Center is hosting this year’s event, with Team World and Team Europe going head-to-head once more.
And it is Team World who are in the driving seat ahead of the final day, leading Team Europe by 9 points to 3.
Roger Federer urges every tournament director to make a change in tennis
But Federer has addressed an issue at the event and on the ATP Tour at large, having been asked on Served Live if there’s a need to correct the court surface to bring in different elements of the game.
He replied: “Yes, definitely. I just had this conversation this morning with Reilly Opelka. I told him it’s not okay – and I fault myself because I was part of the decision making for the court surface speed here – but it can’t be that he’s kick serving on the ad side, indoors against Casper Ruud.
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“Casper Ruud actually can go back, even has that option indoors to go return Reilly’s serve which is probably arguably one of the best serves in the game right now.
“And he returns it from hip height and just hits a cross-court passing shot winner on the return on break point.
“I feel like it should be a little bit more difficult to be able to do that and I think that’s why we, the tournament directors, need to fix it. We need to have not only fast courts.
“What we would want to see is [Carlos] Alcaraz or [Jannik] Sinner figure it out on lightning-fast, then have the same match on super slow and see how that matches up.
“But that’s how the ranking points used to be, remember? Back in the day only 12 tournaments counted, so everybody would play on their favourite surface and then they would sometimes meet, and those were the best matches when you had the attacker against the retriever and now everybody plays similar because the tournament directors have allowed, with the ball speed and the court speed, that every week is basically the same.
“That’s why you can just go from winning French, Wimbledon, US Open and just play the same way.”
Roger Federer says if he thinks tennis can ‘figure out’ court issue
It’s fair to say that tennis has changed a lot even since Federer’s days, although the Swiss legend was able to win on every surface.
He particularly thrived on the grass courts of Wimbledon, but also clinched huge success on the hard courts of the Australian Open and the US Open.
And after years of falling short on the clay courts of the French Open, he finally claimed his one and only Roland Garros title in 2009.
READ MORE: What Roger Federer said to Joao Fonseca when they met for the very first time at the Laver Cup
Despite his latest frustrations with the modern game, which has been dominated by Alcaraz and Sinner, Federer is confident a change is in the offing.
He added: “I understand the safety net that tournament directors see in making the surface slower, is for the weaker player he has to hit extra amazing shots to beat Sinner whereas if it’s quick, he can only maybe blast a few, at the right time, and it gets past.
“So that’s what the tournament directors [think], ‘I kind of like Sinner and Alcaraz in the finals, you know, it kind of works for the game’.”
His fellow former world number one Andy Roddick replied: “That’s the thing, that’s the entire thing. That basically, you give a surface where it kind of exposes Carlos’s paintbrush even more, where he has time and he can play all the variety of shots. He’s going to win on slow, he’s going to win on fast.”
Federer then commented: “But I think we’ll get there again, I think we’ll figure it out.”
Sinner isn’t playing at the current edition of the Laver Cup, but Alcaraz has indeed been upset, losing his singles meeting with Taylor Fritz on day two.
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