Roger Federer ready for the new season

Tennis players don’t get much rest between seasons and after only a little more than a month off, the pros are back at it.

My all-time favorite player, the great Roger Federer, has begun defense of his title at the Qatar Open this week and is riding a 17-match winning streak carried over from last season when he won three straight tournaments including the ATP Finals.

“You can definitely take confidence from the end of the year and sort of just carry it over because you’re in a good mindset,” Federer said told reporters this week. “You know, you just believe that you’re doing the right things on the court. You’re not second guessing yourself. From that standpoint, confidence is … it’s a huge part of our, you know, life sometimes as a tennis player.”

Federer, 30, has a record 16 grand slam titles to his credit but has not won one of the sport’s big four championships since the 2010 Australian Open and has not been ranked number one since August of that year.

He is currently ranked third behind Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal. But he has not given up hope of regaining the top ranking later this season.

“You have to go step by step, and right now focus is on Doha, my first round,” he Federer said. “Then I do hope I can move on and defend my title here and then go to sort of Australia and make my move over there. Then I have a lot coming up in February, as well, for me. So it’s going to be an interesting next two months for me, because I will be playing a lot of tennis. So I hope that I will hold up well physically.”