Better late than never. Even when it comes to respect, what Roger Federer both to have always nurtured towards Novak Djokovic. Even if there was a time when, by the Swiss’s own admission, the respect that the Serbian has deserved on the field over time was not at all a given. For example at the beginning of his career of the record holder of weeks at the top of the ATP ranking (that’s 428), when no one gave him too much credit and above all no one dreamed of placing him between the two sacred monsters of tennis of the first glimpse of the new millennium, who went by the name of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.
King Roger: “Nole had technical defects, but he worked on them”
In an interview given to Telegraph, the Swiss explained that he felt guilty for not having given Djokovic the attention and respect that he deserved in the first part of his career. “I remember back then, when Nole it was practically in its infancy, although there was a lot of hype around it Djokovic I wasn’t entirely convinced of what it could do.
I’ll say it without beating around the bush: I don’t think I didn’t give Novak the respect he deserved, and all this because of its technical flaws. Because it seemed to me that Novak had a really extreme forehand grip and his backhand wasn’t as fluid as it has become over the years. Once corrected some of these aspects and he became a monstrous player, only at that point did I understand how great he was.” An admission of guilt that ended up being heardand King Roger even in debt with what (numbers in hand) has turned out to be a very worthy successor in the Olympus of the greats of world tennis.
“We didn’t want a killjoy between me and Nadal”
In the interview, Federer he explained that there was a time when he let it shine through too a bit of healthy jealousy towards the one who along the way would have stolen some of his most significant records accumulated over the course of your career. “In that idea that Nole wasn’t up to my standards and that of Nadal I think there was also a sense of frustration due to the fact that, having become strong in a short time, he ended up take on the role of party pooper.
When Novak he approached me and Rafa probably many people thought that nThere was no need to have another big player in our universe, because I and I were already enough Nadal. Clearly, however, we were wrong, and Djokovic he was good at demonstrating it on the pitch. And then even outside he demonstrated that be a very nice personwho cares so much about his family”.
Words that still do honor to Federer, which in the collective imagination is seen as the antithesis of what has been Nadal, with whom he gave birth to one of the best rivalries in the world of sport. With Djokovic however the comparison was equally exciting, even though people loved the one between each other more Roger and Rafa: with Nole the balance is 27-23 in favor of the Serbian, in a period of time lasting a total of 15 years.
