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Federer, 39, decided to end his Roland Garros
campaign on Sunday, a day after winning a gruelling third-round
match against Dominik Koepfer.
Eight-time Wimbledon winner Federer, who has hardly played in
the last 17 months because of a knee injury, had been due to
face Italian ninth seed Matteo Berrettini in the French Open on
Monday.
Replying to a tweet from a user who said Federer was
"disrespectful" to other players for "using" the French Open to
gain fitness, Murray said
https://twitter.com/
andy_murray/status/1401619163492331526: "In basketball, football
etc when returning from injury players are given reduced minutes
to build up their fitness.
"In tennis you don't have that luxury of just playing a set in
first match then 2 sets the next etc and building up that way.
"I'd argue that it's quite risky to play multiple 4hr matches in
a row in your 2nd tournaments back in 18 months so to me it
makes sense to be reactive based on how your body feels, length
of matches etc (sic)."
Federer's decision sparked mixed reactions, with seven-time
French Open winner Chris Evert saying the Swiss had earned the
right to do so, while former U.S. Davis Cup captain Patrick
McEnroe said he understood Federer's reasoning, but it was not a
good look.
(Reporting by Manasi Pathak in Bengaluru; Editing by Jacqueline
Wong)
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