The coach of Novak Djokovic says Roger Federer shouldn’t be written off by anybody as the Swiss Maestro nears his return to the Tour after almost a year away.
Goran Ivanisevic believes the world No.5 could still pose a danger to players on the Tour this season. Federer hasn’t played a competitive match since his semi-final loss to Djokovic at the Australian Open last year due to a right knee injury. He underwent two surgical procedures in 2020 with the second taking place after the first failed to produce the desired results.
Speaking about Federer during an extensive interview with Tennis Majors, former Wimbledon champion Ivanisevic believes that he is a threat to others on the Tour based on personal experience. As a player he played against him twice on the ATP Tour and lost both of those matches in straight sets. Although that was during the early stages of Federer’s career (2000 and 2001).
“I have played against Federer and I have coached against Federer. One thing I have learned is that you should never write him off, so I won’t do it now,” he said.
“He is always dangerous, particularly at Wimbledon and to a lesser extent at the US Open. If he is playing, that means that he is ready and when he is ready, he is an extremely difficult opponent to have.”
The 39-year-old will start his comeback next week at the Qatar Open in Doha where he will be the second seed behind Dominic Thiem. It had been originally hoped that Federer would be ready in time for the Australian Open last month but he didn’t have enough time to do so.
Shedding some light on Federer’s current form, fitness trainer Pierre Paganini recently told Tages-Anzeiger that he only decides to return to the Tour if he knows he can play well. Although Paganini admits that it could be a long road ahead.
“It’s a bit early to answer this question,” he replied when asked about Federer’s title chances.
“The opponents are strong, tennis is getting stronger. And he made one decisive contribution to it. So it is almost his fault that it is so.’
“But I would like to emphasize that he also knows that the road will be a little longer. I cannot imagine him not asking questions about the withdrawal (retirement).”
Although Federer has been reported as training as normal once again. It was recently confirmed that he will not be playing at the Miami Open after opting instead to conduct a training block heading into the clay-court season next month.
“He trains practically normally. If you could see him, you would say: he is not injured, everything is fine,” said Paganini.
“But we must not forget only when all the stages are finished does reactivity begin to work. This is very important in tennis. We’ve been working on that for a long time, and that’s where you can see if the puzzle works, in all its variants. That’s where we are now. This is good for him because it took an incredible amount of patience to get to this point. It’s crazy thinking about all this.“
The Qatar Open main draw will get underway next Monday.
