Roger Federer thinks about giving up after a tiebreaker crime thriller

After a three and a half hour long thriller in a game that took place in front of empty stands, Roger Federer is in the round of 16 of the French Open. He leaves it open whether he will compete there, as he said in the media conference after the game.

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Roger Federer, how worried were you after you lost the second set and were behind with a break in the third?

Roger Federer: After the second set I wasn’t sure how much I had left in the tank. It was a good battle to the end. I tried to calm myself down, relax, and play out the experience. Like a cat, you have several lives in a five-sentence. I had to play with it. I also showed him that I was battered like a boxer, but knew that I could go a step further. It’s difficult for me to play emotionally on the same level from the first to the last point. Then you are constantly in adrenaline and emotions. That takes a lot of energy. Today my fighting spirit saved me across the finish line.

You have now played the sixth game after the two operations. How do you expect how you will feel after this game?

I expect this fight to leave its mark, that’s normal too. We have to see what is okay and what would be too much, what would be too risky. Then you have to ask yourself the question: What should I take a risk for if I don’t have to? The important thing is that I remember what I came here for. What my goal is. And that’s not winning the French Open.

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Does that mean you are thinking of not playing against Matteo Berrettini in the round of 16 on Monday?

For me, games like this are small steps towards something that is very important to me. I need games like that. We go through these and then we will decide whether I should continue playing or not, whether it would be too much of a risk, or whether it would be better to take a break. Look, I don’t have a week off between here and Halle like I usually have. A game like this shows me that I could possibly have played a fifth set. But I don’t know how I feel the day after. That will be interesting.

You stood on the court for 3:35 hours and at the end felt as fresh as in the first sentence. What conclusions do you draw from this?

I was already pushing the limit, but of course I never trained for three and a half hours. So this was a huge step forward for me. I didn’t think that I could win three games and deliver again today under completely different circumstances after the match against Cilic. So I am very happy.

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For the first time in your career you played in front of empty ranks today. How did you experience this?

It was’nt easy. I have to push myself after the lost second sentence and try to think of the people who are watching TV and get inspired by that idea. I knew that when I came back it would hit me at some point because the pandemic wasn’t over yet. It would have hit me more in the past. As a young player, I didn’t like training at all, I didn’t like it at all. It’s always been about the games, the atmosphere and about playing something. Today I kept reminding myself that I was standing on Center Court in Paris, which I had dreamed of as a little boy.

Because of the lack of spectators, you could hear the dialogues with the referee, the opponent or your monologues for once. Is it true that you were very emotional?

When there are no spectators, you can just hear everything, like in football, but where it’s even more chaotic. You have to be careful with us. If you are the king of the curse, you have to be careful with your choice of words. At the same time, you have to push yourself because the audience won’t carry you. You get into a quandary. You saw that at Koepfer. He likes to get excited and let his emotions run free. With that you are at the limit. The referee can hardly let anything through, which I find almost a shame. But rules are rules. For me personally: I don’t have the feeling that I had to make big changes. I’m much more emotional in training. I knock balls away, throw the bat and curse. But in a match I can pull myself together and concentrate.

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