We joked about it, thats why Im very much aware of what happened, and thats why we are laughing in the locker room about it now.

Roger Federer

Categorized in : Sports

I am disappointed that I will not be able to compete today. I am not 100 percent physically and, after consultation with my team, it was determined that I not play, rome has always been one of my favorite cities to visit and I hope to be back next year.

I came out of the blocks well and held serve throughout, so I am very happy to be in the next round, i played today already and Borna didn't. I don't know whether it's a disadvantage or not but either way it's going to be tough.

I knew it was going to be something that was not right. The way he was moving was not well, but at the same time I have got to make him work hard, keep doing my things.

I enjoyed it. I think I played very well. I had to, because I think when you let Denis play, he's got some serious power, and he gets rhythm going. He can really put you in uncomfortable situations.

Denis Shapovalov's one of the big shotmakers in the game. I love Denis Shapovalov forehand, it's an exciting draw for John and for Roger Federer here, playing these young guys. They are not just young, but they are very good, as well.

I hit it late and that's why it went short, that's not what I wanted to do but maybe what it took. I got a bit lucky there at the end.

A lot of stuff has been decided already so we'll see if this week is going to happen or not but we are not chasing each other at this point, if it happens, it happens.

I lot has happened in the past 18 months, you can't just copy and paste and play exactly the same thing again.

For the first round I actually felt really good, if I maybe would have served a little bit better, I think things would have gone faster.

I'm delighted. It's great to win my eighth here in Dubai and in combination with my 100th singles title, tough conditions and tough opponents. To win in Marseille( last Sunday) and then come here was difficult for Stefanos Tsitsipas.

For me the ranking, at 37 years old, is no longer really the priority, but the idea for me is to be in good health, to know that I can win tournaments, to know that I can beat them( Novak Djokovic and Spaniard Nadal), and after that it is a pleasure.

I can't wait. We talked about Laver Cup in Melbourne Park, we talked about how excited he( Spaniard Nadal) was and me too that we're going to be on the same team again, we don't know the opponents' team quite yet, it's a good thing Spaniard Nadal is going to be on my team, and it's on home soil for me in Switzerland, it's indoors, I like indoors.

He's always good for a headline, look, I like Nick. I like the way he plays and all that. Yeah, I was happy to hear that he was in the commentary booth.

Yeah, we need him to play first before commentating for the whate... by Roger Federer

Yeah, we need him to play first before commentating for the whatever 10-plus years.

I don't want to play too much because there is better things to d... by Roger Federer

I don't want to play too much because there is better things to do than play tennis, so we will see.

I think I can trust my second serve in particular; when you trust your second serve, you can go after your first serve, i started to feel that midway through the first set it was going to be difficult for Denis to get into my service games. That relaxes you from the baseline. Then good things really happen.

I feel good, i've been training really well. I've had another great season( in 2018). I'm still happy playing, and I won the last two Australian Open editions. So yeah, I definitely should be going in there with confidence.

Sometimes you lose the control. The match is long, so you have time to bounce back, I guess, to regroup, a couple times I lost my cool, then I lost my serve, then a set. Nadal is who he is because he knows how to use those momentums. When he sees the opportunity, he seizes it, he really takes it.

As exciting as it is, I feel like I'm doing a good job of keeping it in perspective, there's hopefully two more matches still to be played. As of right now, I'm sort of more focused on that than getting too excited about the overall picture.

After all these years, it is surprising to be the No. 1 seed, in the top two rankings at 36. I didn't think that was ever going to happen, to be honest, that has been the surprise for me, that sometimes there is a set like this. I was just very happy that I was able to protect my serve, find a way to break, create opportunities. I think I can be very pleased.