Roger Federer has only played 19 games since the start of 2020, battling a knee injury and doing his best to prolong his career. In March last year, the Swiss returned to the court in Doha and had to think through every move to get back to 100% and find the rhythm without stressing his knee.
Federer played well at Roland Garros and reached the fourth round before retiring to rest his knee ahead of the grass season he loves so much. On the other hand, Roger suffered an early defeat in Halle and suffered a tough defeat at Wimbledon.
After the campaign at the All England Club, Federer said he knew it would not be easy to beat his young rivals, qualifying his experience as a struggle. The veteran didn’t play well against Ilya Ivashka in the first round in Halle before Felix Auger-Aliassime beat him 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 after a dominant display in sets two and three.
Roger Federer has described his campaign on grass last year.
At Wimbledon, the veteran became the oldest player to reach the quarter-finals with victories over Adrian Mannarino, Richard Gasquet, Cameron Norrie and Lorenzo Sonego.
Still, Hubert Hurkacz proved to be a tall order and beat Roger 6-3, 7-0, 6-0 to hand him one of his most brutal Major defeats. Federer had a break lead in the second set before the Pole overtook the deficit to win the tie-break.
Roger had nothing left in the tank in the third set, experiencing his first donut since 2008 and undergoing his third knee surgery a few weeks later. “It’s a matter of perspective.
You know you need a purpose when you’re going through rehab with what I did. You can’t think of the whole mountain to climb at once; you have to go in stages. Wimbledon was the first great initial stage, if you will.
This step is over and you need to reevaluate everything. Halle and Wimbledon were tough times for me because I had to go the extra mile every time, especially when things got tough against Felix or Hurkacz.
I knew it would be difficult, to be honest. Now I have to talk to the team, take my time and not feel rushed by you or anyone else. I have to take my time and make the right decision, the one I want to make and the one I feel most comfortable with,” said Roger Federer.
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