Federer practicing with a bigger racquet in Hamburg. Will the racquet bring him back to the forefront?

Roger Federer met the press Monday in Hamburg and the Swiss star revealed that he made the decision to play the event the day after his shock second round loss to Sergiy Stakhovsky at Wimbledon.

“I think this decision was made very quickly the day after Wimbledon,” Federer told the German press today. “I thought, what are my options now? Do I need more practice? Do I need more matches? What does my heart say? I really wanted to play some more matches.”

Hamburg tournament director and fellow Wimbledon champion Michael Stich did the honors giving Federer, a 4-time champion their, a wildcard to get into the draw.

Federer also pointed out that his decision was influenced by the need for more match play and more confidence. Roger is still playing a reduced schedule but he hasn’t been reaching finals, so he hasn’t been playing as many matches as he’s in prior years.

“Right now I just want to win a lot of matches, hopefully win a couple of tournaments and then sort of build confidence and go from there into the hard courts,” Federer said.

On the court, there’s been much speculation, especially on twitter, that Federer is debuting a new, larger racquet this week in Hamburg. Federer has long used one of the smallest frames on the tour, but as his skills diminish a larger head size could prove beneficial, some suggest.

At Wimbledon Federer was using a mostly white frame, the Wilson BLX 90 ProStaff. In practice at Hamburg the frame he is using is clearly black.

With his family back home, Federer landed Sunday in Hamburg and hit with friend Tommy Haas. Then he reportedly went for a steak dinner and a movie!

The 5th-ranked Federer faces Daniel Brands in the second round on Wednesday. Brands is the German who played Rafael Nadal very tough at the French Open. Next week Roger will return to Switzerland to play in Gstaad.

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