Blog by Yevgeny Kafelnikov - Part2
Posted on October 15, 2009
It’s nice to see new faces at the top of men's tennis. I saw the US Open final that Juan Martin Del Potro won recently. He’s going to be a great addition to the top of men’s tennis. He can definitely hold himself as one of the top guys and he belongs there. But I think Del Potro is going to have some hard competition before he reaches Number One.
Federer might be nearing the end of his career but Nadal is still going to be there for a while I think. When Federer steps down Nadal is going to take over along with Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic and now Del Potro. They’re all guys with a legitimate chance of getting to Number One.
With Nadal, we’ve always known that it would only be a matter of time before his body broke down but I do think the time he took off after the French Open to take care of his body was important and I think he may still have many wonderful days of glory ahead of him. He is still only 23 years old and although the career of a tennis player is relatively short, he is going to have a hell of a career.
Some people are talking about this era as a ‘Golden Age’ of tennis. I think it's difficult to call it the ‘best’ era, but it’s certainly the best since the Pete Sampras/Andre Agassi era. I guess everyone is going to have a different opinion on this but it’s always great to see two guys competing against one another at such a high level the way Federer and Nadal have done over the past few years.
My prediction is that Federer will end this year still as World Number One. In fact, I think it’s a no-brainer. Next year might be a different story though. It’s definitely getting much harder for him as his body doesn’t recover as fast and as well as five years ago. He’s more fragile than he was before and all the players can sense that and they’re making his life much more difficult. It’s a question of when he says ‘enough is enough’. He’s broken all the records, he’s made a fortune on the court, he’s safe financially. The question is where he finds another goal to set himself as at the moment he must be finding that difficult. He is certainly the most accomplished tennis player probably ever in my opinion, and I’m not sure many people would disagree with me!
I’ve been following quite a lot of current tennis at the moment because I’ve been doing some work with the Russian Tennis Federation. I mainly watch men’s tennis but I did see what Kim Clijsters did at the US Open and that was amazing. What a story!
Yevgeny