Eurosport - Thu, 14 May 00:13:00 2009
Switzerland's former world number one Roger Federer admitted he is seeking a sixth title at Halle's ATP tournament next month as he prepares for Wimbledon.
"Halle would be the first tournament which I could win sixth times and that is a record I really want to achieve," said the world number two.
"For me, in spite of the pressure there, Halle is the ideal tournament between the big Grand Slam events at Roland Garros and Wimbledon."
Federer is unbeaten at Halle in 25 matches having won the 2003-2006 tournament as well as last year's Westfalen event which he traditionally uses to prepare for Wimbledon.
His main rivals this year in Halle include Serbia's Novak Djokovic, ranked fourth in the world, as well as Spain's Fernando Verdasco, who is eighth, and France's Jo-Wilifried Tsonga, ranked ninth.
Without a title to his name yet in 2009, Federer wants to make sure he wins Halle and wrestles back the number one ranking from Spain's Rafael Nadal.
Federer picked up his fifth Halle title when he beat Germany's Philipp Kohlschreiber 6-3, 6-4 and his last defeat at the Westfalen tournament was in the semi-finals to Nicolas Kiefer back in June 2002.
Comment 1 - 12 of 12
Roger don't worry you will walk it and i bet you will win wimbledon this year too.
fed did not say a word about no.1 spot, it was the journalist's comment .
i suppose federer knows better than anybody else that 5000 ranking points is far too much.
and he is deteriorating while the young guys (including nadal) are still improving.
however he could add some big titles to his collection, but he should change tactics.
if he plays the same game against nadal than in the last ocassions when he lost he can not expect a different outcome.
i would say more serve and volley, but his first serve percentage is somewhere around (sometimes even below) 50% this season.
anyway his feet are not getting faster and sometimes his grounstrokes are ailing as well, so i would still say: approach the net.
Mba E - for me the Federer race is over. He is not going to be no.1 ever again. The crown has been taken by Nadal who will reatin it for couple of years until he faces the same fate as Federer and every other legend - he will be defeated by someone else and step down from the throne. To me it is now inevitable that Federer will go down. Maybe he settles within top 5 for year or two and then move downwards again. What I think is the most curious question is the fact that he's got the ability to win some good tournaments and some drama matches yet.
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I agree, he can win the number one back, but it depends how badly he wants it. Nadal, even in practice is formiddable, he wants to win every point, not just the match. He gets annoyed when his opponant wins a point, never mind a game.
So Roger needs to cut out all the unforced errors, he can't afford to give Nadal free points, he won't be getting any in return thats for sure.
With a baby on the way though, how much will he want to win, how strong is his desire to be number one again? If he manages it, no-one could deny it would be an amazing feat, to beat a man who is playing out of his skin at the moment. He needs to beat him consistantly this year to win back the number one ranking, so all the best. I can't see anyone else stopping Nadal, so if Roger doesn't find his "A" game, it's going to be Nadal for the next few years at least.
fed express can be top again he just needs to change his game play, be more aggresive which he never is, he needs to go for more of the shots and put more effort into it, whoever agree's that he can be top again please express it, i need some back up as im a huge fan of roger
murray is warming up to take the world no 2 from federer soon, well if u over take no 2 in a race then what position will u be? guys supply your answers
He still produces some awsome tennis guys respect that. I was just going to say that he struggles to keep up with top players even if the battle is won already - last meeting with Djokovic was clearly a breakdown. Same with AO final. I don't write him off I think he might win some good match against Djokovic maybe Halle would be good.
What a moron is Federer. He really thinks that he can achive no1 spot once again... he's paranoid. When Sampras couldn't find his form cause he had become older, he simply wanted to win just one more GS, but this Federer is really stupid.
Federer the man who can't deal with the fact that he's not the best!
risimko, u might be right but until he get there first
He wouldn't win this one either. He is now talking about records and wrestling back number one yada yada yada, yet he is playing sh'it. Realistically, he should worry about his number 2 ranking
I wouldn't bet this could be the only tour event he gets this year.
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