When Roger Federer beat Tomas Berdych 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 to win the Dubai Open for the sixth time, his fans had several questions for him.
"Win or lose, please would you keep playing another ten years?"
"No problem with that - the question is whether it would be on the tour or not," Federer smiled. "Clearly the goal is to play as long as I can, and to enjoy myself.
"So ten years, maybe, ask it again and we will see. Let's talk in ten years."
The 32-year-old would like to go as far as Jimmy Connors. But on Saturday, he was happy to remain in the present and hold his 73rd career title, in a game that was much appreciated as the Swiss attacked from the word go.
"I'm very, very happy with my game tonight and this week. Tomas had advantage early and should have got it home," Federer said having won the match, after going down the first set. "I was a little lucky, but I also fought hard. I broke back quickly in the second set and was able to turn it around. I stayed calm when I needed to and once I got in more returns I was able to come through."
Berdych was disappointed to have not made the best of his initial chances. Asked what exactly went wrong after the first set, he said: "I would say many things. The match started pretty well. I had really many chances, and then I basically just gave him the game and that's it."
Meanwhile, in the men's doubles final, Indo-Pak duo Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi got the better of the top seed pair Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic. Bopanna and Qureshi won their fifth ATP team title, beating Nestor and Zimonjic 6-4, 6-3. This is also their first win together after Paris 2011.
"We are happy to be back to winning ways and winning a title," said Bopanna. "We got back this year hoping to continue the streak and doing well. We started off well in Sydney. We lost to Zimonjic and Nestor there in the final and happy to win this title against them and get a little sweet revenge back."
"We had in our mind we had to go all out, because the last time we lost to them, and this time we just had to go out aggressively," added Qureshi. "I think we had a very aggressive mindset, and luckily it just paid off. I'm really happy that we ended up getting a win today."
