Roger Federer concerned about lack of young tennis talent

Shanghai, China: Former world No 1 Roger Federer has expressed his concerns about the impending talent void that tennis may experience in the near future due to a lack of youngsters emerging.

“There’s hardly any teenagers anywhere,” Federer said on the opening day of the Shanghai Rolex Masters on Monday. “I don’t think there was one in the top 300 not a long time ago in the world, not just in China. So for that matter, it’s going to take teenagers longer to make a breakthrough, make it into the top 100, top 50, top 10 and so forth.

“It used to be completely different 10, 20 or 30 years ago. It seemed much faster [getting more teenagers into the game]. I don’t know what happened to the game. Maybe tennis has become more physical and more mental. At the moment I think all countries are fighting to have that teenager break through and break that mould again and reach high rankings early.”

The Swiss said he was eager for young stars to emerge. “Overall for the game, I think it would be fun to have young, up and coming stars around,” Federer said. “With China, they’re trying very hard and they are very disciplined. Clearly it would be amazing for this kind of a huge tournament and the country to have a rising star within the top 50.”