"He likes to play kind of bullets to kill time and distract himself" - Ivan Ljubicic on Roger Federer's interest in chess

Former World No. 3 Ivan Ljubicic, who coached Roger Federer from 2016-2022, has revealed that the 20-time Grand Slam champion is an avid chess player.

While playing exhibition chess against FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky, Ljubicic stated that Federer was a massive fan of bullet chess, in which time controls are faster than three minutes per player.

"He likes to play kind of bullets to kill time and distract himself. I know more (than Roger) or less but I prefer not to talk about it. He would not enjoy me talking about it," said Ljubicic.

The Croat also revealed how Federer got hooked on the game and said that the Swiss maestro keeps tabs on what is happening in the world of chess.

"He got hooked by seeing how fanatic I was about it. He had the basics and I honestly don't know if he still does it because we haven't spent a lot of time together in 14 months since he had surgery but yeah he also knows the general ideas of what's happening in the chess world," he added.

"He makes it easy for coaches" - Ivan Ljubicic on Roger Federer

Laver Cup 2022 - Day Three

Ivan Ljubicic coached Roger Federer to two Australian Opens and one Wimbledon title during his largely successful six-year tenure.

Ljubicic spoke about his time as Federer's coach during a recent interview, revealing how much freedom he was given to express his thoughts. He also said that while there were some "difficult moments," most of the time it was "very enjoyable."

"Easy! Easy because he makes it easy for coaches," Ljubicic told Eurosport. "He is really open and makes sure you have freedom. You are comfortable and you feel you can say whatever you think is right and the way it is."

"He always said, 'I don't want to hear from you what you think I want to hear - I want to hear what you really think; I want to hear the truth," he continued." He repeated that multiple times, really making sure that we as coaches - or at least me as a coach - really felt free and comfortable. It was always that."

"There were many moments where I just wouldn't have anything to say because he was just perfect. Really, there were some practices that were ridiculous! I would just give him balls and just say 'you are good!' but we had some tough ones as well, some tough times, and difficult moments, but most of the time it was just very, very enjoyable," he concluded.

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