Roger Federer had set off the alarms a few days ago, when he practically dropped out of the Australia Open and put a blanket of doubt about the continuity of his career, after a year of inactivity and going under the knife twice to have an arthroscopy in the right knee.
But the former world No. 1 has no interest that the end of his fantastic career is just a walk through the ATP Tour, looking for farewell tributes. You want to win and you need to be competitive because your nature demands it. That’s why he achieved so much, that’s why this final effort to try to get in shape for the Australian Open, to be played in February 2021, is not surprising.
In the final stretch of his recovery after the surgeries, he chose to stay as he usually does at this stage in his winter home in Dubai together with his team of trainers and physical trainers. In an interview with the Swiss magazine Schweizer Illustrierte, the 39-year-old compared his current situation to that of 2016, when he was also removed from the circuit due to injury, from which he was able to recover and return to the track to win more titles.
In this tune. Craig Tiley, head of the Australia Open, said: “All the best players in the world, including Roger Federer, have committed to coming to Melbourne.”
The change in the schedule, naturally, helped Federer’s chances of arriving in time for the first Grand Slam of 2021. The Swiss’s last match was on January 30 this year, when he fell to Serbian Novak Djokovic, precisely in one of the semifinals of the Australian tournament.
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