Roger Federer Admits His Mind Wanders; Americans Querrey, Blake Lose in Delray
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The ATP had an interesting headline on their website today: “Federer: I’m Not Robocop”. Within the story, Roger Federer admits that sometimes during a match or even a point sometimes his mind wanders.
The way he puts it, on any given point or stroke Federer could be thinking about the new Lady Gaga album or what to eat for dinner! And here I thought I was the only one!
“Sometimes [my concentration] wanders,” revealed Federer. “Sometimes if you have a song in your mind, sometimes you’re thinking of what’s going to happen tomorrow, what’s the plan for tonight. All those things happen. We’re human at the end of the day. We’re not a machine and go from like point to point like RoboCop.
“It’s like we have our fun, and sometimes it’s hard when the mind starts wandering. I realized today at one point I served the first point of one of the games and I was not even focused. I knew I was going to hit it down the T, but no, you know, not that full concentration I needed. And then I told myself: Okay, concentrate, please. So sometimes you have to remind yourself, because time goes by in between. You want to keep the intensity high, but at the same time you want to relax. It’s a habit you get.”
Despite his concentration lapses Federer still managed to blitz Marcel Granollers 63, 64 in the second round of the Dubai Duty Free. (Video highlights and an interview with yellow Federer below). Roger will play Sergei Stakhovsky in the quarterfinals tomorrow. It’s his third straight match playing a first-time opponent.
No. 2 seed Novak Djokovic won his ninth straight match today beating Feliciano Lopez in three sets and he now plays Florian Mayer. Gilles Simon & Richard Gasquet and Tomas Berdych v. Philipp Petzschner round out the QFs.
“To be honest, I was a little bit surprised with the way he was returning tonight,” Djokovic said. “He was getting a lot of balls back and he was making me play an extra shot. In the rallies, we were quite even towards the end. So I’m just fortunate to go through.”
The big surprise on the day came on the beach in Delray where Ryan Sweeting (with the Jim Courier serve and ugly looking forehand) upset the slumping Sam Querrey 76, 64. James Blake, who seems to be on his last go round, lost to Kei Nishikori in straight sets. I remember watching Nishikori beat Blake a few years ago in the Delray Beach final when James all but choked the match away.
Mardy Fish (v. Mello) and Juan Martin del Potro (v. Gabashvilli) play tomorrow in the second round.
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