Despite an abbreviated schedule, Roger Federer rules the roost

THE men’s tennis season is one of the most arduous slogs in professional sports. Most players kick off their season the first week of each new year in Australia, then travel the globe to compete multiple times a month in an attempt to qualify for the year-end championships, held in London in mid-November. The off-season is barely worthy of the name, and is often insufficient for competitors to recover from a year’s worth of nagging injuries, not to mention developing new skills and tactics for a fresh campaign. The tour is undergoing a health crisis of sorts, as Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka, all victors of multiple grand-slam tournaments, are ageing and either absent or struggling to overcome physical woes. Some players—including Milos Raonic, a 27-year-old Canadian who is also on the comeback trail—attribute their absences to the excessive rigors of the schedule.

One man, however,...Continue reading