Roger Federer (Photo : Getty Images)
Roger Federer is likely to be remembered as the Greatest Of All Time in tennis, but his career is far from over.
Despite a challenging start to the year, the Swiss virtuoso is still working on his game and his goal is very clear as he stated to The Guardian in an extensive interview.
With all his accolades, he still considers Wimbledon as "the holy grail"of the sport and he wants to another crack to get his 8th title.
"This is where my heroes - [Boris] Becker, [Stefan] Edberg, [Pete] Sampras - won. I won the juniors there in 1998, my first slam, I won all these unbelievable matches there," he said. "Wimbledon is the holy grail."
There are naysayers who believe that Federer is already washed up and that the changing of the guard has already commenced. His recent defeats at Stuttgart only fueled the retirement rumors.
But Federer dismisses those talks as hanging up his racquet seems to be the last thing on his mind.
"I've heard retirement [talk] since 2009 when I won the French Open and people were like, well, what else are you playing for?" Federer said. "I'm like, what's wrong with you people? Don't you understand that playing tennis is great fun?"
There are also talks about Novak Djokovic's dominance and how Federer would not be able to keep pace with the Serbian, but Federer responds with confidence only the greatest can possess.
"I don't need to win three slams a year to be content. If the body doesn't want to do it, if the mind doesn't want to do it, if my wife doesn't want me to do it, if my kids don't like it, I'll stop tomorrow. Zero problem."
Still, the Swiss maestro would not rest on his laurels. He knows there is work to be done for him to claim the "holy grail" of tennis an eighth time. His two defeats at Stuttgart and Halle were at grass courts and he will step into Wimbledon without holding a grass title for the first time since 2002.
According to Tennis.com, he has been working on his baseline game as "lack of consistency" in that aspect of his game led to his defeats at Halle.
"I guess that comes through movement and through just playing enough again," he said. "And I think if the movement gets better and then the baseline game improves a little bit, I'll be better on the big points, on the return."
The no.3 ranked player in the world is confident that he can work on his game in time for the tennis' most highly regarded event. He admits he's not yet in top form but there is "enough time" to work himself back to shape.
"Once the tournament gets going, I [have] play the way that I want to play-positive, aggressive, mindset. Play the points my way and just be super consistent, make the opponent feel uncomfortable."
