The Secret To Roger’s Turnaround In London

One may wonder how Roger Federer bounced back from his first-ever straight-sets defeat in round-robin play at the Nitto ATP Finals. After recovering well on Tuesday with a victory against Dominic Thiem, the Swiss said that the answer was simple: a day off.

“I will do the same again tomorrow because it worked. [The] important [thing] was not my forehand or my backhand or my serve or anything. I guess it was my head. For that sometimes, you need a break,” Federer said. “I’ve been playing a lot of tennis the past two months… I saw the [Kei] Nishikori match on the way back to the hotel. A good, long trip. That was positive. Had a lot of time to talk. We came to the conclusions, or the coaches thought, ‘Take it easy, enjoy the day with your family, and come out happy’.”

At 37 years old with 99-tour-level titles to his name, Federer knew it was not about fixing his tennis. The Swiss cancelled his Monday practice and cleared his head, hitting the refresh button instead of a tennis ball.

“When you play Thiem, that’s what we care about, the head, not the shots. The shots are there,” Federer said his coaching team told him. “I felt that way today. So I’m very happy that that was the right decision and I was able to show a reaction from my first-round match.”

Federer did well to break Thiem four times in a match-up that had previously favoured the Austrian, with Thiem winning two of the pair’s three previous FedEx ATP Head2Head meetings. The six-time season finale winner maintained his hopes of qualifying for the semi-finals at this event for the 15th time, but he is not looking ahead to the next four just yet. His sole focus is on Kevin Anderson, who is 2-0 in Group Lleyton Hewitt.

“I feel like I’m ready to go for the day after tomorrow [against Anderson],” Federer said. “I don’t know what happened against Nishikori. Maybe it’s the round-robin format that got to me. You don’t feel like you have the knife here, like in another tournament, where if you’re struggling in the first round, you know if you don’t get your act together, you’re home in 30 minutes.”

In hindsight, Federer believes that his match against seventh seed Nishikori was not a lost cause. The World No. 3 believes his mindset doomed him, not his level.

“Kei was playing horribly as well for the first eight games like I was. I should have said, ‘That’s great, I don’t need rhythm, he needs rhythm. Things are looking good for me. It’s okay to not start well. It’s the first round. It’s normal. Sometimes you feel that way,’” Federer said. “But I think I saw it too negative. So for me it was really important to remind myself what a thrill it is to play here at The O2. I love playing in London, always have, always will. It is my 16th year qualifying, so sometimes it’s just another match. I think that’s maybe what happened to me, and in a very disappointing way.”

On Tuesday, Federer saw highlights of all of the Nitto ATP Finals action over the past 10 years since the tournament moved to London. That added a bit of extra fire to his game.

“I really reminded myself again what a pleasure and what a privilege it is to play in this arena. This is when you start playing better tennis instead of thinking about all the bad things that are going on,” Federer said. “There’s no reason to get that negative. The tournament has only just started.”

And after turning things around against Thiem, Federer will hope to add another win to his total against Anderson on Thursday.