{"id":1000,"date":"2009-03-12T17:56:21","date_gmt":"2009-03-13T01:56:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/?p=999"},"modified":"2009-03-12T17:56:21","modified_gmt":"2009-03-13T01:56:21","slug":"federer-will-have-a-baby-instead-of-a-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/federer-will-have-a-baby-instead-of-a-coach\/","title":{"rendered":"Federer Will Have a Baby Instead of a coach"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Instead of announcing a new coaching arrangement on his website, Roger Federer announced something altogether different.<\/b><\/p>\n<div style=\"float:left;margin-right:5px;;height:359px;\" class=\"picappstyle\"><script src=\"http:\/\/cdn.pis.picapp.com\/IamProd\/Resources\/Javascripts\/PisV3.js\"><\/script><script src=\"http:\/\/cdn.pis.picapp.com\/IamProd\/Resources\/javascripts\/DataV3.ashx?ImageId=724119&#038;PublisherId=0\"><\/script><a href=\"http:\/\/view.picapp.com\/default.aspx?term=roger federer&#038;iid=4224808\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"remove\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"picappimg\" src=\"http:\/\/cdn.picapp.com\/ftp\/Images\/9\/f\/5\/a\/PicImg_BNP_Paribas_Open_d6ce.jpg\" width=\"320\" height=\"213\" oncontextmenu=\"return false;\" onload=\"try{registerLoadImage(this)}catch(ex){}\" alt=\"BNP Paribas Open Day 3\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var iamInit = function() {try{initIamServingHandler(320,213,724119,\"http:\/\/cdn.pis.picapp.com\/IamProd\/Resources\/Css\/css2.css\")}catch(ex){}}()<\/script><\/div>\n<p>I\u2019m in that netherworld of the opening rounds of a tennis Masters 1000 event and while those opening rounds are real enough, they don\u2019t exist in the media and that means they don\u2019t exist at all as far as most fans are concerned. This week and next we have the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bnpparibasopen.org\/1\/home\/\">BNP Paribas Open<\/a> in Indian Wells and the website still has interviews from last year despite the fact that <b>Roger Federer<\/b>, <b>Novak Djokovic<\/b>, and <b>Andy Murray<\/b> have already given interviews as have many players who have actually played matches such as <b>Shahar Peer<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p>Broadcasting doesn\u2019t begin till Saturday and that means live streaming begins on Saturday too. I\u2019ll be on my way to Indian Wells<br \/>\nby the middle of next week but what if <b>Roger Federer<\/b> flames out early &#8211; it has happened you know \u2013 or <b>Andy Murray<\/b> re-injures his ankle? Last year tournament co-director <b>Charlie Pasarell<\/b> said the event would look into putting webcams on all courts. I\u2019m ready and waiting because, really, how hard can that be? And I\u2019ve missed enough tennis already.<\/p>\n<p>While I\u2019m waiting, let\u2019s talk about <b>Mirka Vavrinec<\/b>, Federer\u2019s longtime girlfriend. First of all she is pregnant. And that means Federer will be having a baby instead of a coach because his short trial session in Dubai with <b>Darren Cahill<\/b> ended without a coaching agreement. Cahill won\u2019t commit to twenty weeks a year with Federer because he has his own babies at home in Las Vegas \u2013 a four and a seven year old \u2013 and he doesn\u2019t want to be away from them for so long.<\/p>\n<p>Now this is rather curious to me. Surely Cahill knew what coaching Federer entailed before traveling all the way to Dubai. Twenty weeks is a part-time commitment as it is. Was Cahill thinking of turning up for the slams and Masters 1000 events only? Wouldn\u2019t that be the minimum you\u2019d expect if you were coaching an ATP pro?<\/p>\n<p>Guess what, add up four slams and nine Masters 1000 events and you get 19 weeks if you count Indian Wells and Miami as two weeks events. Skip Shanghai if the poor guy doesn\u2019t want to travel all the way to China with Roger and substitute a few weeks of training sessions in the off-season and there\u2019s your 20 weeks.<\/p>\n<p>If I were a conspiracy theorist, I\u2019d suggest that Cahill got to Dubai, started working with Roger, and decided that it wasn\u2019t going to work for some reason or another, then politely went back to Vegas and cited his young children as his reason for turning down the opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>Federer\u2019s huge issue is <b>Rafael Nadal<\/b> and forget, for the moment, beating Nadal on clay. Federer needs a way to beat him on hard court before he can even think about clay, and consecutive events in Indian Wells and Miami should have been a perfect opportunity to try out a strategy that Cahill and Federer agree on. Cahill has already said that Federer should attack the net more on fast surfaces and surely Federer knew that, so strategy disagreement isn\u2019t likely to be the problem.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe Cahill really did get back to Vegas and realize that he couldn\u2019t be away from home for 20 weeks a year \u2013 maybe he looked around the playroom and realized his kids needed him or decided he wasn\u2019t ready for the coaching grind just yet, but if he did, I\u2019m guessing that something in Dubai contributed to it.<\/p>\n<p>I have to say that the first thing I thought about when I read about Mirka\u2019s pregnancy was former U.S. football player <b>Travis Henry<\/b>. <a href=http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/03\/12\/sports\/football\/12henry.html?_r=1&#038;scp=1&#038;sq=henry%20nine%20kids&#038;st=cse>The New York Times<\/a> reports today that Henry has nine children by nine different women and some of the children were born only months apart. For obvious reasons, he\u2019s having trouble meeting his child support obligations and he&#8217;s also under arraignment on drug charges. Federer is 27 years old and Mirka is 30 years old and this is their first child. Henry is 30 years old.<\/p>\n<p>Henry may be an exception in the degree of his proliferation but the cultural divide between these two examples is indicative of the two different sports &#8211; U.S. football is a working class sport &#8211; and, to some degree, the two different cultures \u2013 Federer and Mirka are Swiss citizens. This is a huge subject that I&#8217;m touching on only lightly, but it&#8217;s hard not to be struck by the contrast between the two news items.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m coming back to Mirka for another reason. I found this paragraph in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisweek.com\/news\/fullstory.sps?inewsid=6628400\">an article in Tennis Week<\/a> last week:<\/p>\n<p><i>Federer, who has worked with Australian Tony Roche and Sweden&#8217;s Peter Lundgren in the past, often consults long-time girlfriend Mirka Vavrinec, a former WTA Tour pro, on certain opponents, but has said he is receptive to hearing a new voice with different ideas. Federer split with Roche, his last full-time coach, in May of 2007.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Federer will continue to work with Swiss Davis Cup captain Severin Luthi as his de facto coach but Mirka will be otherwise occupied at some point and Luthi is unlikely to offer a much in the way of different ideas. So what are you going to do now Roger?<\/p>\n<p>And how about you out there? Got any suggestions?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Instead of announcing a new coaching arrangement on his website, Roger Federer announced something altogether different. I\u2019m in that netherworld of the opening rounds of a tennis Masters 1000 event and while those opening rounds are real enough, they don\u2019t exist in the media and that means they don\u2019t exist at all as far as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1000\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}