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Federer, tied with Rafa Nadal on a record 20
Grand Slam singles titles, has not played a competitive match
since losing to world number one Novak Djokovic in the
Australian Open semi-finals in 2020.
The Swiss maestro will make his highly-anticipated return at
this week's Qatar Open, where he is seeded behind U.S. Open
champion Dominic Thiem.
"I'm very happy to be back playing a tournament again. It's been
a long time. I never thought it would take this long," Federer
told reporters on Sunday.
The Swiss has a bye in the first round in Doha, where he is a
three-time winner, and his return match will either be on
Tuesday or Wednesday against Briton Dan Evans or Frenchman
Jeremy Chardy.
Tennis is like "riding a bike" for Federer, who is not worried
about his game or starting with "really low" expectations, but
is more interested to see how his knee reacts to the rigours of
competitive tennis.
"It's just about 'Let's see how matches go, let's see how
training goes with all the top guys and professional players,
not just sparring partners'," he said, adding that he has not
decided his schedule beyond this week.
"I was playing a lot of two-on-ones the last few months and so
forth. I know I need to go back to training after here again so
from this standpoint it's just about building up to being
stronger, better, fitter, faster and all that stuff.
WIMBLEDON TARGET
"I hope then by Wimbledon I'm going to be 100% and that's when
the season starts for me. Everything until then it's just 'Let's
see how it goes', he added of the championships starting on June
28, which were cancelled last year due to COVID-19.
"I might surprise myself but then actually I've already done in
practice the last few weeks, I was surprised at actually how
well it did go. But like we know, matches are a different
animal."
The Swiss proved that he can quickly get back into his groove
when he won the 2017 Australian Open despite missing the second
half of the 2016 season because of knee surgery.
Federer said he keenly kept track of results on the ATP Tour as
he worked his way back to fitness and the complications after
his first knee procedure motivated him to return healthy.
"Retirement was never really on the cards. I think it's more of
a conversation if the knee keeps bothering me for months and
months – then let's look at it," he said. "I just feel like the
story is not over.
"It's not like there's one particular reason that I wanted to
keep playing tennis other than I enjoyed playing tennis, I enjoy
being on the road.
"I'm still a work in progress but probably one of the other
reasons for coming back is I want to get that high again of
playing against the biggest players and in the biggest
tournaments and hopefully winning them again," he added.
"Hopefully I can play in front of crowds again."
(Reporting by Sudipto Ganguly in Mumbai; editing by Ken Ferris)
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