The excitement was great in 2012 when organizer Ion Tiriac decided to simply have blue sand applied at the ATP Masters 1000 tournament in Madrid. Hardly any player left a good hair on the unfamiliar surface, in addition to the color, the aces were also disturbed by the supposedly lower slip resistance of the blue surface. But one did not whine: Roger Federer. And gladly took the title from the Spanish capital with him.

It is there that the 37-year-old Swiss will make his comeback on the ashes next week, after three seasons in which he had given up the Terre Battue for various reasons. Preparations have been going on for a few weeks - and right in the middle of it all is the Swiss fitness pope Pierre Paganini.

Federer's enthusiasm was as great as his ambition

The Swiss daily Blick gave Paganini a detailed interview on Roger Federer's condition, ambitions and strengths. It becomes clear that the 20-time Grand Slam champion leaves nothing to chance and has set high goals for his short ash tour (apart from Madrid, only a performance at the French Open is planned). Paganini has no doubt that Federer can also achieve this.

"At Roger, enthusiasm is always the same as ambition and vice versa," says Pierre Paganini. “It has nothing to do with the surface, but with tennis infatuation. I think Roger can achieve great results on any surface. ”Paganini did not want to give any information about the exact level of performance, the training block runs until May 5.

“But we started well. It's nice to see Roger's anticipation of the sand surface. He approaches the training like a child looking forward to the first school trip - awesome! Feeling this enthusiasm has a huge impact on the quality of the training. ”

The entire interview with Pierre Paganini can be found here.