Keystone
After almost two years, Roger Federer will return to clay at the Geneva Open on Tuesday. His expectations are rather modest. Still.
The postponement of the French Open by one week (start on May 30th) is the luck of the tournament officials in Geneva. For the first time you can present Roger Federer in your field. And the joy is mutual. It quickly became clear to the 20-time Grand Slam champion that he wanted to play on clay again after his mini comeback in Doha in March. Otherwise the break until the lawn season would have been too long. “The question was: do I also play Roland Garros or only tournaments beforehand,” Federer reveals at a video conference on Monday morning. “But I wanted to play in Paris.” And because there is now a week in between, Geneva also comes to kiss the hand.
The expectations are still “manageable”, as Federer says. “I’m curious myself whether I’ll play two, eight or ten movements here,” he confesses. In Doha he wasn’t ready for so much tennis. “I knew that I could play for an hour, it got complicated after two hours.” When he had to play in Qatar for two days in a row, the second tough game within 24 hours was already too much. “I knew tennis was there, but there was a lack of stamina, liveliness and a lot more.” Since then, he has not had any setbacks, trained a lot and now feels much better.
Federer does not allow comparisons with 2016
In Geneva, if the weather cooperates, Federer will have a day off after a possible opening win on Tuesday until the second game. He is also counting on it to get a little warmer again. “On Sunday morning I trained with Cilic at 8 degrees and in the drizzle,” says the 39-year-old from Basel. “That’s not nice.” In the past few weeks in Switzerland, however, he often trained at low temperatures and had no problems with his back.
The knee should also hold up after the two operations last year. However, the situation cannot be compared with 2016. At that time, Federer returned after a six-month break with his victory at the Australian Open with drums and trumpets. “Now I’m coming back from a lot further, there are a lot more question marks.” Since the Australian Open in January 2020, he has only played the two games in Doha.
That is why the sand tournaments in Geneva and Paris are only “like privileged training”. It’s about getting back into the rhythm of the competition, playing fit and hopefully winning a few matches ». Expectations are then significantly higher on grass, Wimbledon is the big goal. “But after Roland Garros I’ll know better where I stand.”
A disadvantage of postponing the French Open by a week is a more crowded program before Wimbledon. Immediately afterwards, there is the lawn tournament in Halle, which Federer has already won ten times. Could a performance that was too good in Paris, as it did two years ago, when Federer was eliminated in the semifinals against Rafael Nadal, even turn into a boomerang? He laughs: “That would be a good problem, one that I would like to take.” He often didn’t have much time between Paris and Halle. “Of course I wasn’t 40 at the time and didn’t come back from injuries. But there are many positive things about playing well in Paris. “
The fact that Federer “has been training with the Roland Garros balls for weeks” underscores that he is not entering the sand season completely without ambitions. And if it doesn’t work out with a lot of wins, he gets more time to switch to grass. A win-win situation for the moment.
