Not only is the guy the smartest player on court [of all time, probably], he does an excellent job off it too!

Miami is perhaps the slowest hard court on tour, right now. Even slower than aussie open. At nights, it gets even slower. It plays almost like a clay court at night. Federer is very samrt to skip it.

He needs to schedule his season so that he can be in peak form for Wimbledon and USopen.

Keep going Fed. You are the greatest sports Icon of this era.

February 8th, 2013 at 1:04 am

Rafa should skip this tournament also. rest the knee & prepare for the european season.

February 8th, 2013 at 2:35 am

The smartest guy that is out there when it comes to scheduling.

February 8th, 2013 at 2:50 am

It seems like he does not care about the ranking anymore. According to his schedule, he does not have many tournaments where he can gain points.

If he doesn’t care, I won’t either. I’m just happy that he is still playing which is also at a very high level :)

February 8th, 2013 at 3:19 am

He chose not to play this year; he might play it next year, depending on what his plans are. According to the rules, he’s earned the right to participate in whichever tournaments he chooses.

Better to have slightly shorter blocks of intense, high-quality play than longer blocks of lower-quality play. If cutting a couple tournaments means he can stay around for another two years, it’s well worth it.

Also, Andy Roddick is not a Florida native; he was born in Nebraska and lived in Texas in his younger days. Although he did live in Florida.

February 8th, 2013 at 3:33 am

I agree with you entirely Steve-O, as long as he keeps on playing, that’s all that matters.

February 8th, 2013 at 9:29 am

easy to skip masters when you’ve got the ranking points to spare.
however he has two 500 wins and indian wells to defend.madrid soon after.
few early exits and smart scheduling suddenly turns to cocky scheduling.
expect more of a fight in this period from djoker and murray particularly.
federer may claim he doesn’t care about ranking but in the future if he’s facing slipping from top 4 he will. because he’ll start to find out what it’s like facing djoker,murray,nadal etc in the QF or 4th round even. and good luck winning slams then.
might find him signing up to a few more tournies.

February 8th, 2013 at 10:01 am

roy

Good try, again. Fed announced nearly a year ago that he was going to cut back his schedule. He is going for longetivity here. As you get older you simply have to cut back to be more effective and competitive. There really is no alternative here if he wants coniunue to compete for Slams.

February 8th, 2013 at 10:09 am

I see no reason to expect early exits from Federer, particularly at his next few events.

February 8th, 2013 at 10:11 am

Lets say he meets the top 4 in the 4th rd, then he has got one of them out of the way, and probably a lesser opponet in the next rd, don’t see your logic there also…..?

February 8th, 2013 at 10:11 am

well this is awful news for me and my family as this is one of the few autographs we are missing and we were determined to get it this year. Federer practices at the ritz carlton Key Biscayne and not on site, so its tough to get signed by him unless you are by the tunnel at the end of one of his matches.

February 8th, 2013 at 12:31 pm

Kimberly, sounds you’re gonna have to come to New York. My cousin got Federer’s autograph twice over the last few years.

February 8th, 2013 at 12:37 pm

We have of the top ten men Nadal, Murray, Berdych, Ferrer, Tispsarevic, Tsonga. We don’t have Djokovic or Federer. We never got Roddick but we have Isner, Fish and Querrey. And we have Sharapova, Ivanovic, and Venus. No Serena. My son is taking a date (an older woman, a fourth grader) who is committed to getting her favorite player Azarenka autograph this year. He says hes going to really show her how to get lots of signatures.

February 8th, 2013 at 12:43 pm

Not relevant to the discussion, but I don’t think Roddick is technically a Florida native – if I’m not mistaken he was born in Nebraska and lived mostly in Texas before he moved to Florida for his tennis.

It would be interesting to see any of the top players playing any of the other top players before the semi-finals to see if it affects the dynamic of the match ups. If Rafa has some unlikely struggles leading up to Roland Garros this could happen there. In their current form I don’t think it would affect any of their prospects of winning majors because mostly they are losing to each other with few notable exceptions. So would really only affect esoteric streaks and “records” that people like Chris Fowler live for, but aren’t really important in the grand scheme of things.

I find it interesting that the rules are such that players are forced to play anywhere, which is crazy. A player should be allowed to play wherever they want whenever they want and deal with the consequences. In the early days of professional tennis, players signed contracts to specific promoters who would then charge the tournaments appearance fees to make “their” players available – in a sense the promoters owned the players, and many great players were forced to skip tournaments – even MAJORS – as a result, if the tournament refused to pay up. It seems now the ATP has replaced the promoters and imposed their will collectively on all the players, supplanting each individual’s prerogative to ply his trade wherever and whenever he wants.

I guess if you throw enough money at someone, they’ll do almost anything.

Having said that, I’ve never really understood the timing of Indian Wells and Miami anyway – it’s long after the Australian Open and buts up against the start of the European clay court season. Plus the travel to go from the Australian to one’s home base and back to the US again doesn’t seem conducive to the health of players on tour. Maybe this rule is part of why we see so many dubious retirements by the summer, but I digress.

I’d like to see the Australian Open move to March, which would be possible if they’d make it an indoor major. Then Indian Wells and Miami could come before the Australian – although Florida can be pretty rough weather-wise in February. The ATP and WTA would probably have to pony up a lot of money to Tennis Australia for that, and because that tournament slots in nicely with the Australian summer holidays, this is probably a pipe dream – but I can’t see anyone skipping either of these tournaments if they were a warm ups to the Australian. Plus the tour could start in late January instead of late December, giving players a longer off season.

February 8th, 2013 at 12:47 pm

MMT, I agree. I never understood the concept of player’s being required to play x amount of tournaments. I mean it’s not incredibly hard to get out of most events if you just cite injury, but still.

I mean I get it from the organizations perspective – of course you want all the top players to be at all the big events so that you have a great quality tournament. But it still seems kind of weird. Especially since it’s not like the players are paid ahead of time. Their pay is still based on how they perform at the event, never any guaranteed contracts.

February 8th, 2013 at 12:56 pm

The schedule of tournaments is quite messed up.

IW and Miami are just way out of place, both location wise and surface wise.

First, move the French a bit early and have a proper grass court masters tournament before Wimbledon. That also remedies the ridiculous two weeks between French and WImbledon.

Second, Have IW in January, and the AUS open after that in February. HAve some hard court tournaments leading up to the AUS open. BEing on the west coast, the time difference between IW and AUS open will not be THAT bad (5 hours or so??).

Then after the AUS open, there could be other tournaments as they are, minus the masters, and then the full clay swing, followed by grass swing, then a break, followed by the North American hard court swing, then a break, followed by an indoor swing all in Europe (since the Asian tournaments would happen prior to the AUS open now).

right now 4 of the 8 masters tournaments are in North America. That’s really disproportionate to either players’ representation or viewers. And there is no masters on grass. Removing Miami and replacing it with a grass masters in Europe would be the best thing to do.

February 8th, 2013 at 2:55 pm

So in terms of Masters and Slams, it could be:

IW, Shanghai (2 hard masters) then AUS open.

Madrid, Rome (2 clay masters), then French

Grass masters then Wimbledon.

Toronto, Cincinnati (2 hard masters) then USO.

Indoor masters then YEC (right now Paris and London) – they should do these in Asia, since the entire clay and grass swing in already in Europe, and much of the hard court swing is in North America.

Sprinkle the 500 tournaments accordingly (by surface and geography).

It will never happen, given the politics of it all – but it would be much better for the game and the players.

February 8th, 2013 at 3:02 pm

i want roger to do whatever, so he can play as long as possible.

February 8th, 2013 at 3:50 pm

AO will stay as it is, it is school holiday time and final is on long weekend, Australia day. Why would they change , we have best conditions of all GS tournaments, two courts with roof,(15.000 and 10.500 people) the third one is well ond the way to get a roof, Margaret Court Arena will be ready for 2015 AO. There is even about seven clay courts on the same ground, if Rafa decides to practice in Melbourne;)They better think how to fix problems that keep coming back at USO and FO like wind, rain no lights etc.

February 8th, 2013 at 5:23 pm

Can’t blame Federer for missing Miami, the slowest hard court on Tour wic is the last suited for his style of play. It is even slower than may clay courts that I have seen tournaments on. Fast hard courts courts like Rotterdam, Cincinnati suit Federer the most. Wish him the best, he has nothing left to prove to anyone anymore, a trimmed out schedule at this stage of his career could see him playing or another 5-7 years. He is the greatest ever without a doubt

February 8th, 2013 at 11:21 pm

the day he stops playing,i wil stop watching tennis.

February 8th, 2013 at 11:39 pm

MMT,

Insightful post..

some comments

“Having said that, I’ve never really understood the timing of Indian Wells and Miami anyway – it’s long after the Australian Open and buts up against the start of the European clay court season”

Keep in mind the Slams have priority over other tournaments, and scheduling as such. They dictate, and the other tournies fill available time slots.

Also keep in mind “the money”. If IW offers players room, board, perks, big prize money, etc…….they will come no matter what unless it conflicts directly with a Slam. Money talks…..

and regarding this to Fed…

Fed is just at an age ( and wealth ) where he can afford to turn down big money/perk events. Good/bad/indifferent? Don’t really know….was just looking at it from a age factor ( his schedule ).

February 9th, 2013 at 12:08 am

Roger is 32 years old this year. also, he is twins’ dad.

Roger has an injury of the back and the waist from the young time.

Many of Roger’s contemporary players have already retire.

I’m sad..

February 9th, 2013 at 10:08 am

I’m sensing much disrespect towards the Miami tournament in reading the comments (pretty sure someone was dumb enough to suggest “removing it all together”). I currently live in Miami, and have been attending the Sony since 2008 and let me tell you, from someone who actually knows what he’s talking about, that the tournament is a HUGE deal.The place is absolutely packed everyday, the tourney has a HUGE imprint in south america with people coming from almost every south american country to watch the players (so its not considered a “north american event” AT ALL but a cosmopolitan one), celebrities come out every year and massive improvements to the site have recently been approved. So basically, you could all do better than underestimate the importance of the Sony, guys. Concerning Federer’s absence I cannot say that Im not devastated. I’ve been ballboying at the sony since ’10 (this will be my fourth year) and although I’ve had every other player in the top 10 for both the men and the women’s in my court I’d never had Federer (hate you, Roddick). Fed’s my favorite player and this is going to be my last year as a ballboy before going off to college so Im really disappointed. But it’ll be absolutely amazing anyway

February 9th, 2013 at 12:18 pm

^ It’s often called “the 6th slam”.

February 9th, 2013 at 12:52 pm

I’d like to echo the sentiments that Fed is wise to skip Miami, not only because a reduced schedule will likely give him more years on the tour before retirement, but also because of the absurd slowness of Miami’s courts. The game was too fast in the 90′s sure, but the pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction now. I think it should arranged as follows:

Clay is the only truly slow surface.
Outdoor hard courts are laid down to be medium to medium-fast.
Grass and indoor hard courts are the only fast surfaces.

Homogenization of surfaces is booooooorrrrring.

February 9th, 2013 at 2:41 pm

On a current note, the draw for Rotterdam came out. Federer’s potential opponents are: Zemlja, Youznhy, Janowicz, Tsonga, DelPotro. The one I’d like to really see is the Janowicz match. I’ll get the popcorn for that, hope they both make it.

February 9th, 2013 at 3:17 pm

That is pretty tough draw for Federer, if it tourns out to be that way. Is Rotterdam fast court ?

February 9th, 2013 at 4:06 pm

Jannoviwcz is a classy guy. He awaits Federer with anxiety.

February 10th, 2013 at 9:23 am

Janowicz is a classy guy. He awaits Federer with anxiety.

February 10th, 2013 at 9:23 am

jane-don’t you mean the 5th slam?

February 10th, 2013 at 10:59 am

^ OOPS, yes of course.

February 10th, 2013 at 12:58 pm

I would love to see Federer play Janowicz,it would be interesting to see how they match up against one another.

February 10th, 2013 at 3:53 pm

Yep, Jerzy trash-talking Roger and Novak. He’s a bit green to be doing that. Let’s see what Roger does to him

February 10th, 2013 at 7:05 pm

“Let’s see what Roger does to him”

Same what he did to Tomic at AO, put him back into his place.

February 10th, 2013 at 8:16 pm