Roger Federer Playing at Court Level [Compilation]
The best angle to watch the Swiss Maestro hit a tennis ball
If you’re lucky you might get to watch Roger Federer courtside a few times a year but many of us only get to see the Swiss Maestro playing on our TV screens.
Usually, tennis is only ever shown at one specific camera angle during play, with an occasional secondary camera available for replays depending on the setup.
However, that angle rarely gives us a good look at stroke production, footwork, ball trajectory and spin. Luckily, as is often the case YouTube and Tennis fans have combined to find the answer: Court Level Footage.
This is by far my favourite angle to watch from so I decided to look through my YouTube favourites list and put together a quick compilation of videos that show Roger hitting at court level.
There is a mixture of practice and some match play with footage taken by fans across the globe. I personally prefer the practice vids as the footage is usually more stable and at a better angle.
Some of the best clips are usually filmed in Indian Wells as the facilities there lend themselves peRFectly for fans to capture practices from the back of the court as you can get the camera extremely close.
Roger Federer Full Practice BNP Paribas Open 2019
Roger Federer / Tomas Berdych Practice (Court Level 60fps) Indian Wells 2018
Roger Federer Indian Wells 2017 R2 – Courtside
Roger Federer – Court Level Points 2018
Federer Training 2018 Court Level View (HD)
Roger Federer – Ultimate Collection of Court Level Points
Federer vs Zverev – Stuttgart 2018 – Court Level View
Roger Federer vs Novak Djokovic Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships 2014
Federer vs Zverev [COURT LEVEL VIEW] – London 2018
Roger Federer vs Gael Monfils at Cincy – A magic performance – August 2014
Hopefully, we get to see more of this type of footage from the main broadcasters whereby you can choose which angle you want to watch from.
What is your favourite angle to watch from? Do you like court level footage? If you watch live, where do you like to sit? Let me know in the comments.
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Comment leaderboard updated btw, after not touching it for a few weeks.
Go Roger
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Arrrh, Jonathan you are a star! Just 2 days into Fedless time, you should have gone on a holiday, too. Having said that, I miss him already so this is a lovely surprise. Even watching him live at the tournament you rarely get the court level view like these video unless you pay sky-high for the lower tier seat. So thanks!
All about keeping the riddum and momentum 🙂
Never get tired of watching even his practice seccion. Hours and hours if time allowed.
Admittedly haven’t watched all but personally I like Cincy vs Monfils cos the court speed and his “magic performance”. Also Ultimate Collection seems to be excellent, too. Look forward to watching all one at time!
Sometimes I prefer watching practice to matches.
The Monfils video is cool too, some great points. I’m going to do a post about Monfils if I get a chance based on that clip.
Yes, Indian Wells is a great place to watch players practice. They have increased the viewing area (I’m sure because of the crowds wanting to watch Fed). One can walk on platforms between some of the practice courts.
In the northern hemisphere, the best place to watch tennis is in the southwest corner. Your back is to the sun. That is super important because of the sun’s heat and watching with the sun in your face is horrible. That is also the first area where the shade starts. South is good too. I don’t like centre because you are moving your head back and forth all day. And the ump’s chair is in the way on one side.
I like to be about 20 seats up from the court. Better viewing but still close enough to see the faces. I also enjoy fairly high up to see a different perspective. I find where I sit makes a huge difference to the experience.
As far as watching on a screen, when they have a camera behind the play is so interesting. You can imagine the ball coming your way. Another perspective.
Thanks, Jonathan.
I’ve watched at Wimbledon in the sun before, tiring day. You need a hat really, I didn’t have one, thankfully had P20.
Agreed with Sue about the view from centre/middle following the ball left and right. Though I like side or baseline around the corner because I love to see how the ball fly over the net especially the slice. I once watched matches from the court level at Wimby. Awesome to be so close as you could hear players breathing, wish it was Roger.
Yeah behind the umpire isn’t the best. But I don’t mind it
Court level at Wimbledon is great, especially the outside courts. Imagine if Fed played match on now 😆
I didn’t mind sitting behind Roger at the Wimbledon Olympics at all 😀
My kind of compilation. I don;t know (I know) why they don’t throw in a healthy dose of court level every match. As a player, I prefer it over the regular viewing angle and I’m sure those who play prefer that too?
I guess they don’t have the camera set up at most tournaments or the ability to get them low enough at the back of the court?
Less screen estate for the sponsors too perhaps.
Is Fed getting the RF logo back?
Heard that apparently RF stuff had gone from the Nike store site from 1st of April so might getting back soon?
Looks like it from some reports.
Prima aprilis?
https://au.sports.yahoo.com/roger-federer-scores-major-win-off-tennis-court-043027514.html
Link to a story stating he is getting it back. Will be nice to see him with it back on his gear.
Only 2 more wins to reach 1200. And 56 more to go for open era record. I think it is doable if he is able to play at good level till end of next season 😇😇😇
Doesn’t seem 5 mins ago since 1000 in Brisbane.
Magical….
Thank you, Jonathan.
FedastairereR ! 👀🎩👣🐐🎉🎁
Court level view, of course: we can see the players’ technique much better, the ball trajectory especially the up/down path, how it dips as it passes over the net or floats all the way, and so on. It’s full 6-D (3 for the ball position, 3 for the ball speed) The very high camera positions make the game look like Pong.
Bercy usually a bad angle. Shots look weird
Berry has 2 issues with the camera:
-Position: too high
-Focal length: too large. It must be like that because it’s mounted too far away from the court.
I’d rather not going into the details because you would fall asleep faster than watching a MurrayVic match 😛
Rui, I bet you are a barrel of laughs at a physics party.
I didn’t even know that such things existed! Anyway, here goes the fastest physics joke: “A neutrino goes through a bar.” That’s it.
Thank you Jonathan, look forward to perusing the video clips in the near future over a nice glass of wine.
Cheers. Quite a few to watch so might be better to drink from the bottle.
https://www.atptour.com/en/news/brexit-bercow-federer-april-2019
😀
Can’t stand the guy.
Well ,whether you like him or not ,there is no doubt he loves tennis.
His name is my byword for anyone that gets on my nerves 😄😄
I know the Tennis Podcast is not Jonathan’s cup of tea but here is a special edition of it about our hero, for those of you interested, to listen to with another glass of wine ?!
https://play.acast.com/s/thetennispodcast/therogerfedererstory-atennispodcastspecial
Looking at this years stats. Fed is 18-2. Do we remember the 18? We are spoiled rotten Fed fans.
Oh, and my Tennis Blog App is now green instead of yellow. Changing it up, J?
The tennis ball is yellow according to Fed, isn’t it, Jonathan?
Actually it’s greenish yellow and looks greener as the sun sets and the spotlights are still off. Incidentally my company produces tens of tons of colored fiber each year for Penn in the US. And this fellow of yours happens to be the colormatching and dyeing process dude…
RF seasons through 20 matches
19-1: 2004-06, 17
18-2: 2007, 11-12, 14, 18-19
17-3: 2001, 09, 15
16-4: 2002, 03, 08
15-5: 2010, 13, 16
13-7: 2000
7-13: 1999
Yeah just fancied a new icon 🙂
The shots that I find most impressive from these shallow angles of view are the top spin ground strokes that clear the net by 5 cm and dive sharply right after.
On the other hand, one can also notice that as soon as a ball is sent just a bit higher, a bit slower and a bit shorter, it’s all gone…
WoW!
To be quite honest, I just feel like we have some awful tennis-looking outfits sometimes,” he said.
“They’ve just gone too far in the wrong direction.
“They want to make it look too much like a modern tennis shirt that is completely wrong, in terms of designs.
Fed so good at artful criticism. Big dig at Nike now his logo being released (hopefully). I agree, Nike and others having bloody awful looking patterns lately. Now, it’s 1950’s collars and droopy shorts, both with giant red squares.
It’s not only the design: sometimes (many times) you are watching a match where both players are dressed similarly. When white was “mandatory”, that’s how it was. The liberalization of design – colours and patterns – in the eighties led to more individualization of styles which makes sense in an individual sport. Ironically what we have now is another form of standardization where a big brand decides what is to be worn and you end up watching either a pair of zebras (Adidas 2017?), a pair of shrimps (Nike 2018) or a pair of beach tents (Adidas 2018) sharing a court.
Love it ! It’so true… Roger prefers (Australian) lobsters to shrimps…
Hold your horses. A chemical plant exploded in China, killed a lot of people and there will be a severe shortage of all types of dyes, so very soon we will all be wearing raw white. Wimbledon fanatics, rejoice.