Following his shocking early elimination against Albert Ramos-Vinolas 6(4)-7 6-2 3-6 at the 2015 Shanghai Rolex Masters, 17-time grand slam champion Roger Federer has started his preparations for his next tournament. Federer recently had a practise session with Emirates Palace Tennis Academy Director, Peter Wessels, in Dubai.

Wessells, a former top 100 player, shared a snap of the duo’s training session on Instagram. “Found a decent practise partner to get me back in shape again,” Wessels captioned his photo.

Federer, who had been using the UAE capital as his training base since 2004, will compete next in the ATP World Tour Masters 500 event in Basel, Switzerland where he is the defending champion, according to his official website. Federer won his sixth Basel trophy after beating Belgian David Goffin in straight sets 6-2 6-2 in 2014.

The tournament kicks off on Oct. 24 until Nov. 1. After the Basel event, Federer will play in the ATP Master 1000 event in Paris from Nov. 2 to Nov. 8 and then in the season-ending men’s tennis tournament at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London from Nov. 15 to Nov 22.

Meanwhile, Wessels is a former Dutch professional tennis player. He achieved his career-high singles rank as World No. 72 in February 2005. His grand slam performance include reaching the second round of the Australian Open (2005) and French Open (2005), first round of Wimbledon (1999, 2001, and 2005) and third round of the U.S. Open (1999).

Wessels revealed in an interview with Time Out Dubai that the highlight of his career as a tennis player was beating Jens Knippschild 7-6 6-3 in the ATP tournament in Newport in 2000. He also opened up about being Federer’s training partner in Dubai. According to Wessels, he isn’t sure if he can still give Federer a good run for his money.

“I’ve got to be realistic,” Wessels said. “If I can hit balls up and down and do cross court rallies then all goes well, but as soon as I have to move then it’s pretty much over for me.”

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