by Mauro Cappiello

Roger Federer lost his first match in a Davis Cup final in straight sets against Gael Monfils. The Swiss was clearly struggling on court, limited by the back injury he suffered in his ATP World Tour Finals semifinal against team mate Stan Wawrinka.

Today's images brought many to compare Federer's bad luck to the one happened to his coach Stefan Edberg in 1996, when he played his last official match in the Davis Cup final in Malmö right against France. Serving on 2-3 in the first set of the opening rubber, Stefan twisted his right ankle at the net.

He took a long injury time-out and had his foot treated and taped, but that wasn't enough to allow him to get back to the court at his top. He lost that match in straight sets, too, and was unable to compete again in the following two days of the final, that Sweden eventually lost in a dramatic decisive match.

from AS.com
by Alejandro Delmás 
translated into English by Mauro Cappiello

Stefan Edberg was the coach behind Federer's renaissance. If the back injury allows him, he can complete his record of trophies with a Davis Cup title.

When the relationship between you and Roger began, almost a year ago, did you expect these results?

For me, almost everything was a surprise from the first call I received from Roger, yes, almost exactly one year ago. During the first few months I tried to get used to the idea that I was his coach or technical advisor, in the sense that I became part of his team. We had to find the right feeling. During practice, Federer has also surprised me with the amount of things that he can assimilate and execute. He can actually grasp and do anything you say.

Have you been able to develop the technical ideas that you had since the beginning of this 2014 season?

Yes I had a clear idea that he could no longer try to win matches from the baseline. He had to attack more. We started from the basis that he has all the potential shots for an offensive game: his shots are actually perfect. We changed his mentality in some aspects of the game and then he even changed his racquet. We get along quite well. So we just had to expect these results that have arrived.