Stricker brings ex-Federer coach on board

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A touch of Federer magic for Dominic Stricker. The 20-year-old from Bern now receives input from Peter Lundgren, Roger Federer’s former coach. Stricker confirms the partnership as part of his preparations for the Challenger tournament in Lugano, where he will fill in from Tuesday and become number two.

After “some good conversations in recent weeks”, Stricker trained for the first time on Sunday evening under Lundgren, who is mainly intended “as a source of ideas” and as an addition to the previous coach Sven Swinnen. According to Stricker, the 58-year-old Swede, who, in addition to Federer, also looked after Stan Wawrinka, Marat Safin, Marcelo Rios or Grigor Dimitrov, will be at his side at least until the Challenger tournament in Biel at the end of March. “It’s an honor for me to have such a big name on my team,” said Stricker, who hopes to have valuable additional input for the rest of the season.

The left-hander got off to a promising start: he recently won his fourth Challenger title in Rovereto (It) with guest coach Dieter Kindlmann (40/Angelique Kerber’s former coach and Maria Sharapova’s former training partner), making Swiss tennis history. So far, only Wawrinka has managed to win so many Challenger tournaments under the age of 21. “A beautiful thing,” says Stricker with a smile, adding that he feels ready to continue his good run: “Last year I had to contend with one or the other physical problem. Now I feel very good I worked hard on my physique.”

“Given a lot of boost”

His clear goal? Sure, the top 100. And with it the starts on the main fields of the Grand Slam tournaments, which have been denied him so far. At the start of the year, he narrowly missed the Australian Open in qualifying round three. But his strong performance at the NextGen final in Milan – the tournament for the best eight talents under 21 last fall – is still in the back of his mind. There he stormed sensationally into the semi-finals: “That gave me a lot of impulses.”

Now he hopes for the same effect from coach and mentor Lundgren. This had led the young Federer to his first Grand Slam win at Wimbledon in 2003 before they parted ways a few months later. Now he could coach the next Swiss youngster to break through.

Source : Blick