Roger Federer said Thursday he was feeling “really good” as he prepared to face Lleyton Hewitt in the Davis Cup despite a long flight after a gruelling US Open semi-final defeat to Novak Djokovic.
The world number three has made the long trek to Sydney for Switzerland’s World Group play-off against Australia.
“I’m not sore — sorry to disappoint you. I’m feeling good, really good actually,” Federer said.
He will face Hewitt on Friday, with a 17-8 record against the Australian working in his favour.
The pair play second after Stanislas Wawrinka takes on Bernard Tomic on the opening day of a tie on grass courts at the Royal Sydney Golf Club.
Federer was also named to play doubles, pairing with close friend Wawrinka to face Hewitt and Chris Guccione on Saturday as the Swiss attempt to reverse losses in their four previous Davis Cup meetings against Australia.
“Usually we never have that much time to get used to the grass anyway, that’s how we have to deal with it every year for the grass season,” the six-time Wimbledon champion said, shrugging off his lack of preparation.
Swiss captain Severin Luthi backed his star man to cope with the short lead-up time.
“He’s a great champion, we know that, and for sure it’s always better if you have more days, but I’m sure that he can handle this and be ready on Friday,” Luthi told reporters.
Federer missed Switzerland’s defeat to Kazakhstan in 2010 which spelled relegation, but a 5-0 victory over Portugal in July put them back into the play-offs.
Hewitt said he was fit and looking forward to renewing his rivalry with the 16-time Grand Slam champion.
“It’s been what I’ve been working towards in terms of getting my game up to scratch and my body as close to 100 percent right to take on one of the greats,” Hewitt said.
“It’s going to be a tough match — hopefully Bernie (Tomic) can get us off to a good start against Stan on the grass tomorrow and then I can go out there and take Roger on.”
Australian captain Pat Rafter said the choice of grass was more about Wawrinka, who has been struggling with injury, than anything else, with the Swiss having a 9-13 career record on the surface.
“We have to look at what’s our best chance of winning this Davis Cup tie and obviously playing Federer on any surface is not great,” Rafter said.
“So we look at what is Wawrinka’s worst surface and he does not like grass. If we’ve got any chance of beating these guys, we have to take down Wawrinka.”
The winner of the tie advances to the Davis Cup World Group for 2012 while the loser will be forced to battle it out in zonal qualifiers for a chance to enter the elite competition again in 2013.
