No more the favourite at Aus Open, Federer at ease with new role
No more the favourite at Aus Open, Federer at ease with new role
Roger Federer is used to being the hunted not the hunter but for the first time since he won the title as second seed in 2004 the Swiss star heads into the Australian Open as the man doing the chasing.
Instead it is Rafael Nadal who must fight off the challenge for his number one spot while Novak Djokovic must come to terms with defending his only Grand Slam title to date.
Federer has certainly set himself up nicely with a crushing 6-1, 6-3 win against countrymanu00a0 Stanislas Wawrinka in Kooyong and has even gone so far as to suggest that the current crop of young hopefuls like Britain's Andy Murray and Serbian Djokovic are no better than those that have come before them.
Not better
"I know a lot of people are always saying like this seems like a tough generation right now with Murray and Djokovic, Rafa (Nadal) and everything. I don't think it's that much stronger than when I came about," he said.
"We had (Andre) Agassi, (Andy) Roddick, (Lleyton) Hewitt, (Marat) Safin, (Juan Carlos) Ferrero, (David) Nalbandian, all these guys.
"It just always seems like two years on and nobody talks about what happened two years ago.
"I've thought we've had high-quality tennis for a long time now. It's not just now that we have four great players again. I think they were there before, but they were just different names."
Federer, who will begin his quest for a record-equalling 14th Grand Slam title against Italian Andreas Seppi, seems to be more at ease with the world number two tag now and admits starting the year off the top spot has given him a different perspective.
Nicer
"It's a bit nicer not having to defend almost every week I play. I guess that's the nice part about it," he added.
"I only have four titles to defend this year. It's still quite a lot but compared to maybe 10 or 12 a few years ago that takes the pressure off a little bit.
"Obviously that's nice for a change. You enter a tournament and you don't think about it that much. You can actually concentrate more on playing."
