Federer has plenty of greatness left, he just has to find it: Annacone

Paul Annacone’s split with Roger Federer made headlines a few days back — especially with the 17-time grand-slam winner struggling to make it past opponents he would have blown away not too long ago.

Annacone who also coached Pete Sampras for most of his career including the time when age was getting the better of him and Tim Henman when the Brit was outside the top 40 — helping him reach two major semifinals and surge into the top five -  is one of a few people who have witnessed greatness from such close quarters.

“Roger is smart,” he said in an interview to USA Today . “He’ll figure out what he needs. He’s at an interesting time in his career where there is plenty of greatness left. He just has to put the pieces of the puzzle together.”

Annacone goes on to say that greatness doesn’t stop and the problem was that the expectations and the bar for Federer were set too high: “Whenever you start to doubt people like this you kind of set yourself up to get your own foot stuck in your mouth. They’re atypical. They’re phenoms.”

As for the Swiss Master’s retirement, Annacone, who was with Federer for the last three-and-a-half years, says that he would be ‘surprised’ to see him go before winning another major.

Annacone also rubbished the idea that Federer split with him after his recent loss to Gael Monfils at the Shanghai Masters.

Federer announced the split from Annacone on his website earlier, writing: “When we started together we had a vision of a 3-year plan to win another Grand Slam title and get back to the number #1 ranking. Along with many other goals and great memories, these two main goals were achieved. After numerous conversations culminating at the end of our most recent training block, we felt like this was the best time and path for both of us.”

Click here to read the entire interview on USA Today.