Roger Federer hailed the growth the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships has seen over the years – a tournament that has developed in front of the Swiss’ very own eyes.

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After Federer captured his seventh Dubai title last night with a 6-3, 7-5 win over Novak Djokovic at the Aviation Club, the pair had a few words during the trophy ceremony – which the world No. 2 later revealed included rave reviews of the tournament’s evolution.

“We were talking about the attendance, how nice it is now that Dubai has grown so much,” said Federer, who has attended this event 12 times since 2002.

“Because I remember being here over 10 years ago, I guess, and I remember the day sessions were very sparse. And now even day sessions are pretty good and night sessions are usually packed. It’s nice seeing Dubai grow like this.”

Federer has managed to draw sellout crowds each time he has played this week and the fans here have accepted him as one of their own, considering he has residence in Dubai and spends many weeks each year practicing and vacationing.

The crowd was so animated last night, one fan even cried out while he was hitting a forehand on match point. He missed it and appeared distracted by the interruption. But he quickly refocused, getting another one and closed out the clash in one hour and 24 minutes.

“Did it distract me on the forehand? Maybe. But everything went so fast,” said the 33-year-old legend. “I hit a big first serve. He hit a great forehand back, and he was always going to skid so as to catch me a little bit late. Could always happen. So it was a combination of things.

“But it was a fan who was already cheering for me, so I couldn’t be upset about it. And then after that it was just about refocusing and trying to avoid the tiebreaker, because that would have been extremely difficult to go into a breaker being broken.”

Along with Halle and Wimbledon, the seven titles Federer has won in Dubai are the most he has captured at any tournament. He finds that hard to comprehend.

“The seventh is quite unbelievable, when I hear people talking about that, announcing I’m the seven or six time winner here in Dubai. It sounds pretty crazy. It’s nice that Wimbledon and Halle are that way, as well,” said the 17-time grand slam winner.