A tennis player I would like to play with is Federer: Tendulkar

New Delhi: Batting icon Sachin Tendulkar has picked legendary Roger Federer as a tennis player he would have liked to face, given his “cricketing connection” and interest in the sport.

Tendulkar, who has been a regular at Wimbledon for years, met Federer when he visited Centre Court in London on Saturday to watch some tennis matches.

“One tennis player I would like to bat with is Roger because he also has connections to cricket,” Tendulkar told Star Sports on the sidelines of the Wimbledon match.

“His mother is from South Africa and he is interested in cricket. When we sat and chatted, we talked a lot about cricket, not just tennis, so it had to be Roger.” The 51-year-old from Mumbai also said he loved playing tennis with the late Australian spin star Shane Warne and former Indian all-rounder Yuvraj Singh, describing them as cricketers who would make the best doubles partners.

“There are two strong competitors. Unfortunately, we lost Shane Warne a few years ago, but I enjoyed playing tennis with Warne. We even played together in London. The other player is Yuvraj Singh from the Indian cricket team, who also retired. But Warne and Yuvraj would be the right ones.” The era of Djokovic, Federer and Nadal has come to an end: Shastri ========================================= Former Indian coach and player Ravi Shastri believes that Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz are the future stars as the era of Federer, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal has come to an end.

“You get the feeling that the era of Djokovic, Federer and Nadal is coming to an end or has already ended. And it will be Sinner and Alcaraz who will hold the flag high,” said Shastri on the sidelines of the Wimbledon tournament.

“As far as competition goes, they will have some great matches in the future and we hope to have a few more.” On his favourite player at Wimbledon, Shastri said: “At the moment it is Alcaraz. I saw the final last year, in the fifth set. He has a lot of energy and power.

“When I first saw him, I thought of young Nadal. The way he hit the ball, the power he hit it with. And he was like a bull in the fifth set. If you take him to the fifth set, you better be fit or he’ll finish you off.” Shastri also reminisced about how he met multiple Grand Slam winner Jimmy Connors.

“The first time I ever went to Wimbledon was in 1982 when Connors won it and Vijay took us and took us to the dressing room. He took Sunny and me to the dressing room, as they say, not the dressing room and met Jimmy Connors then and I’ve been coming back ever since.” PTI ATK PDS PDS