Roger Federer says he will have a better idea about if he will be able to play competitive tennis again around ‘April/May’ time during a recent video call with Credit Suisse.
The 20-time Grand Slam champion hasn’t played on the Tour since suffering a quarter-final loss to Hubert Hukacz at the Wimbledon championships where he lost the final set 6-0. Federer has been sidelined from action due to a knee injury and underwent a third surgery shortly after the Grand Slam. He had his first two procedures on his knee during 2020 where he missed most of the season.
Despite the issues, 40-year-old Federer isn’t giving up hope of staging a comeback once again but admits the coming weeks will be critical in his recovery. Until now he has been limited as to how much fitness training he can do and hasn’t been able to fully run or apply the maximum pressure onto his joints. Making it unclear as to how his body will hold up when he heads back to the court.
“To give you a little bit of an update maybe I have I think a very interesting and important next sort of months ahead of me,” Federer said at a Credit Suisse event.
“I feel like I will know a whole lot more coming April, you know, where my body is going to be like.
“Until now, I wasn’t really allowed to run yet and do the heavy workloads with jumps and stop and goes. So I hope that that’s all going to start hopefully in a couple of weeks. And then we’ll see how the body will react to that.”
The Swiss Maestro states that his ‘drive’ to play is still there and he can take inspiration from that of rival Rafael Nadal. Nadal won the Australian Open last week after spending the past four months nursing a foot injury which at one stage made him consider his future in the sport due its severity.
“So I think this question is better answered maybe by April or May, but for now of course the drive is there, I’m really motivated to do my work when I’m allowed to do,” Federer continued.
“I did it all again this morning, I’m back in the gym again tomorrow. I’m working as hard as I’m allowed to so it’s still good times even though it’s a little bit slow because I would love to do way more but the doctors and everybody’s holding me back a little bit.”
It is unclear as to when he may potentially be able to play again should everything go according to plan. Back in November Federer openly admitted that he was unsure if he would be able to play at this year’s Wimbledon Championships. Since making his debut at The All England Club in 1999, he has only missed the major once in his career which was in 2020 due to his knee.
Federer has won a staggering 103 ATP titles during his career, which is the second highest tally in the Open Era after Jimmy Connors who won 109. He has spent 310 weeks as world No.1 and has made more than $130M in prize money. Federer holds the records for the oldest ATP No.1 (36 in 2018) and the most consecutive weeks spent at the top of the rankings (237 weeks).
