Much has happened in tennis since Roger Federer was forced into knee surgery seven weeks ago by an injury caused when he was about to run his children a bath.
And last night he gave his first reaction to all the water that has passed, not from the tap but under the bridge in that time.
In the wake of Maria Sharapova’s doping revelations he complained that he has been tested only once in 10 years of regular training trips to his Dubai base.
The tour’s most distinguished statesman also stopped short of giving unqualified support to the idea of equal prize money at all tournaments where men and women compete together.
Federer admitted that he was astonished, along with everyone else, when Sharapova (below) made her confession earlier this month that she had tested positive for meldonium in Australia.
‘I thought she was going to announce her retirement,’ he said, describing the news as ‘disappointing, to say the least’.
‘But it also shows that the famous players can get caught in the system. It seems to be working.’
However, like Andy Murray he still believes there is much room for improvement.
‘I’ve been in Dubai for 10 years now (he is there for around six to eight weeks per season) and I’ve been tested once in 10 years, that’s not OK for me.
‘I get tested far more in Switzerland, a tester lives in my village and he came to see me the day after my surgery.’ It is a common complaint across all sports that in some countries testing is much more rigorous than in others.
‘In Dubai they’ve come once, because of the Asian games,’ said Federer. ‘I’d like it to be the same way and fair. Tennis is doing more and more, but you can always do even more.
‘I still believe we should keep blood samples for 10 years, so athletes and tennis players know you could get punished retroactively. I’m a big believer in that.’
He is still not of the opinion that tennis has a major problem in that area.
‘I don’t think so. Maybe I am naive in the fact that I believe athletes, I trust whatthey are doing. Clearly, when they get caught you turn round because you think, “I can’t believe that they tried to do that”.
‘All I can talk about is myself, what I take, but you have to be sure — I quadruple check anything I take because I don’t want to take any chances whatsoever.’
That remains one of the perplexing issues not fully explained in the Sharapova case — how someone similarly professional and well-staffed was unaware of meldonium’s change of status.
With the argument of financial parity between the sexes having reared its head yet again this past week, Federer stepped into the fray.
He led the campaign four years ago to get the Grand Slams to increase their prize money substantially for everyone but he does not think every event should automatically reward men and women the same where they are alongside each other.
‘It depends on what tournaments we are talking about,’ he said. ‘You have to look at the history of each and every event, where it comes from, where a certain tournament was — maybe a men’s tournament before or maybe they joined later, or vice versa, so it’s sometimes not easy to make equal prize money there.
‘It’s really up to the tournament director to decide if he wants it to be that way.’
But he did affirm that he thought ‘equal prize money is a good thing’.
Federer recalled the strange circumstances of his injury, sustained after his defeat by Novak Djokovic in Australia, as he was in the bathroom.
‘I made a very simple movement, turned back, heard a click in my knee. We went to the zoo and my leg was swollen.’
The need for surgery was diagnosed. ‘Here I am seven weeks and two days later. I’m happy how it went but was very sad when I got the news I had to have an operation because I thought I was going to get through my career without having any.’
He has only been back in full practice mode for a week and now faces a fascinating match-up in the second round of the Miami Open against 2009 US Open champion Juan Martin del Potro, whose career has been desperately hampered over the past three years by repeated wrist problems. – Daily Mail