Roger Federer reveals stance on chasing career title record after 91st win in Miami

Roger Federer has reiterated that it is all about maintaining good health at the moment rather than chasing records after making his best start to a season since 2016.

The Swiss ace has won three titles – Australian Open, BNP Paribas Masters and Miami Masters – from the four tournaments he has played in 2017 and it has seen him rise from number 17 in the world to number four within a space of three months.

Federer has surprised himself with his current run, especially since he is returning from a six-month injury layoff that forced him to cut his 2016 season short in July. The 18-time Grand Slam champion has been tipped to reach the summit of the men's world rankings again, but made it clear that it is not his goal at the moment. He is presently focussing on remaining fit.

He announced a ten-week break after his win at Miami, which will see him return to the court only for the French Open that begins 22 May.

The 35-year-old won his 91<sup>st career singles title by defeating Rafael Nadal in the final of the Miami Masters recently and is now just three behind Ivan Lendl (94) who is second on the all-time list and 18 behind leader Jimmy Connors (109).

Further, Federer admitted that it will be nice to achieve 100 titles before calling time on his career, but insisted that he will not chase it by playing smaller events where he will have a better chance of winning.

"I guess it would be nice to reach 100 just because it´s a good number. But then again, I´m not picking the easy ones to win, to be honest. I´m not going to play smaller tournaments just to chase that, as you can see. I´m even now taking a ten-week break," Federer said, as quoted by tennisworldusa.org.

"Like I said, health comes before everything, before every record at this point. But sure, this has been an incredible start winning three titles this year and none last year. Things are definitely better this year. But for those kinds of numbers I need to stick around for a while and play very, very well at the high level. It´s going to be difficult so we´ll see what happens. 100 would be a great number, of course," the former world number one added.