Roger Federer feels that it’s his tendency to control his workload due to which he has managed to play top tennis for a long time.
Generally, when the tennis players happen to be at the peak of their career, they opt to play in as many tournaments as possible and that does affect their long term prospects.
Their career gets shortened by a year or two as their body surrenders under the pressure of the huge amount of workload that they keep on taking.
Having seen some of the former players retiring in their early thirties because of fitness problems, Federer had decided pretty early that he did not want to go that way.
Right back in 2004 when Federer had achieved the World no. 1 status for the first time, he had made the call that he would not be taking part in more than 20 competitions in a season.
According to Federer, there is always a temptation to chase the cash as a tennis player. The more you play, the higher your chances are as far as grabbing the prizes is concerned, but, playing continuously, you are not going to survive long.
Speaking in a magazine interview, Federer said, “That’s one of the best decisions that I think I have made in my entire career. There have been some players in the past who would play non-stop tennis throughout the season and that did not really help them in terms of their long term plans.”
“Kafelnikov for example, he would do that and you see he was not able to play for as long as he should have. I did not want to be in that situation. I told myself I had to be there for long period and for that, I had to pick and choose my tournaments which I did.”