Dubai

It’s open season on the ATP World Tour. Just when you thought men’s tennis had become too predictable with the top four (before Roger Federer slipped to No. 6, that is) making it to virtually every semi-final and one among them winning every title since the 2009 US Open, up come the top players with coaching announcements that have left tennis fans shaking their heads in disbelief.

World No. 4 Andy Murray must be credited with being the trendsetter in this respect for roping in Ivan Lendl to change his fortunes at the start of 2012. World No. 2 Novak Djokovic followed suit, as he announced the decision to team up with Boris Becker prior to winning the Mubadala World Championship in Abu Dhabi for the second successive year last weekend. The German’s appointment did raise a few eyebrows, but not many were raised when Federer announced that his childhood hero Stefan Edberg would be joining his coaching team.

Murray, on his part, doesn’t see himself as a trendsetter. In a twitter exchange during his Abu Dhabi visit, he told a follower, albeit tongue-in-cheek: “It’s so hard being a trendsetter you know. Feel so much pressure to keep coming up with new ideas and looks etc,” and finished off his tweet with the hashtag “noooot”.

While the Scot may not like to take credit, Dubai can surely do so for the latest dream pairing of Federer and Edberg.

The soon-to-be-father again, who has a home in Dubai and does his winter training here, invited Edberg over for a week in the first half of December. The week in Dubai, Federer said, was spent chatting about his tennis life and how it works, to meet the expanding family, the support staff, to give the Swede an idea of what he would be getting into, even if it was for 10 weeks to start with. The Swiss star said he wanted to make sure Edberg was comfortable after 15 years away from the game and he wanted to give the Swede some time to consider it, all of it.

The appointment thereafter of arguably the greatest volleyer in men’s tennis shows Federer’s willingness to adapt in order to return to winning ways. The 17-time Grand Slam champion has obviously slowed down with age and although he may still back himself to win baseline slugfests with the likes of Djokovic, Murray and [Rafael] Nadal, his purpose is sure to be better served by not getting into them in the first place. Keeping the points shorter would be more to his interest and that is where Edberg comes in.

The Swede was in Dubai in 2008, playing in The Legends “Rock” Dubai and he had told XPRESS that despite Federer’s genius, it would be difficult for him to switch to serve-and-volley if he wanted to late in his career.

“Nobody does it these days, so there is hardly any variation in the style of play. I would love to see players serve and volley more. It’s a very sad aspect of the game that the art has vanished. I understand players like to play to their strengths, but just for changing it a little, they should approach the net. I am sure their chances of winning will increase.

“But then, serve-and-volley is a very difficult art, something one can only learn in the formative years.”

Having just had one of his worst years on the court in 2013, Federer will be hoping that the 47-year-old Swede can help sharpen his volleying skills just enough for him to prove his detractors wrong…yet again. Not that he needs to.