Roger Federer is the greatest ambassador our sport has ever had

When you watch Roger play, the first thing you see is an incredible talent and fluidity, for sure. We have, throughout the years, seen several other guys playing with incredible fluidity and talent. Of course, not like Roger, because there is a difference between Roger and those guys. Those guys have never won a Grand Slam, never. He won 20. Why? Because he's an of the talented guys don't have. They don't want to put their talent in danger, so they don't fight really hard. Because if they fight really hard and they lose, they feel like maybe they're not that talented. So they're never really fighting like crazy. And when they lose, they always think, oh, I could have fought more, and I would probably have won. Roger never had that. He always fought for every single ball in every single match, and he's a real fighter that doesn't look like it because he looks easy. And the second is the work, and that's why also he made this career and not the other guys. Because if he made the career, it's because he's an incredible hard worker. He used to do a lot of sessions at home with two guys against him, or playing one set against one guy. The guy was tired. He was taking a second guy for the second set, a third guy for the third set, a fourth guy for the fourth set, and another guy for the fifth set. And he was playing five sets against five different guys. So he's a real worker. And that's also why, having this gift and this fluidity, he made it become more than a talent, an art, because of the work. And that's why I can say that nobody ever played like Roger, and nobody will ever play like Roger. How did his game change to the time? When Roger came to the game, he could do anything, but he didn't have a real identity of play. Then he started to decide to play servant volley. And at that time, when he started to play servant volley, some players were still playing that type of tennis. That was the type of tennis. And he played the first Wimbledon when he beat Sampras, he was playing servant volley. But they slowed down the surface, and his servant volley game was not as efficient. So because he had other options in his game, he started to work to be more a baseline player, taking the ball very early, spending a lot of time inside the courts, and finishing the points at the net, which is not the same as playing servant volley. And that became really his style, with an incredible forehand, unbelievable, with an incredible slice backhand. Of course, he knew how to do this one quite well. I mean, not like Wawrinka, but he had a good topspin backhand. But the slice backhand was unreal, and he had something very special. He could hit the slice backhand with sidespin. Most of the guys, I mean, all the guys hit the slice backhand with a motion from top up to down. So the ball turns like this. He was hitting the ball also on the side, a bit like a lefty forehand. And the ball was turning this way, but also this way. So when the ball was touching the ground, it was taking the opponent out of the court. And he was doing this one, short cross, putting the opponent in the worst position, out of the court, inside the court, but out of the court, and with a very low ball that they can do nothing with, except putting the ball back, and then they were done on the next shot. So he developed that. He developed probably the best ever movement north-south. Some guys were moving better than him east-west, probably Rafa, Novak. He was very fast, but they were, I think, a bit better doing that, defending, but moving forward, seeing early and jumping inside the baseline, inside the court, sorry, to take the ball very early on the rise and following at the net. He was the best. Turning around the backhand, hitting forehand, unbelievably efficient also. And towards the end of his career, because physically he was going down, he was five years older than the two other guys, Novak and Rafa, he decided that he had to shorten the rallies because he wanted to still have a chance to win a Grand Slam. And he knew playing too long rallies, he would be in trouble. And that's where he decided to come back to serving and volleying much more, which he did. And also, cheap and charged, he created the famous S-A-B-R, SABR, which is taking the ball, the return, almost right behind the service line and running to the net, putting a lot of pressure on the opponents, but still playing from the baseline, but spending much more time to the net, and serving and volleying sometimes. That was towards the end of his career. So he had a career in which he adapted always to the conditions of play, which were faster and then got slower, and also his own condition, getting older and not being able to play longer rallies. And the last thing he did, I said it earlier, but I'm going to say it again, the last thing he did is learning to take the ball much earlier with the backhand, inside the court, to beat Rafa, because Rafa was playing very high on Roger's backhand, pushing Roger to hit the balls over his shoulders and getting tired and playing short and being easy to attack. When Roger decided to step in and take the ball earlier and lower, he started to be much more dangerous, and that's where he beat Rafa in this final of the Australian Open 2017. Hey guys, if you enjoyed this video and want more tennis tips, first, don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel, and then follow me on Instagram at Patrick Moratoglu. See you very soon on a tennis court.