Slumping Federer desperate for Gstaad boost

GSTAAD (Switzerland): Roger Federer will seek to resurrect his disappointing season in front of expectant home fans as the 17-time Grand Slam winner returns to next week’s claycourt Swiss Open for the first time in nine years.

Federer, 31, with his world ranking down to fifth for the first time in a decade, lost 7-6 (9-7), 7-6 (7-4) in the weekend semi-finals at the Hamburg Open to Argentine qualifier Federico Delbonis as the slumping Swiss struggles to try and get adjusted to a new, larger racquet.

“I’ve been very close on numerous occasions to changing racquets in a bigger way,” Federer was quoted as saying on the ATP website while in Germany.

“But then very often, time was the issue. Maybe also just the records of Grand Slams – I always kept on playing in the quarters and semis – so then it was also a bit more difficult to change it because of the time.

“After I lost at Wimbledon, I thought this is a good time to go and test the racquets, to take a bit of time off and then add some tournaments and see was there enough time to change or not,” said the Swiss.

At his last appearance in the elite alpine community of Gstaad in 2004, Federer won the title a year after reaching the final against Jiri Novak on the back of a first career trophy at Wimbledon.

Federer, whose only title this season came on the grass of Halle in June, added the two summer clay events to his schedule after losing in a Wimbledon second-round surprise to Sergiy Stakhovsky, also into the field in the Swiss Alps. — AFP