Roger Federer’s future as a tennis player at 40: “Everything is still a bit uncertain”

Will he continue to play? The question is asked by many tennis fans, and points to Roger Federer who has just turned 40 years old. And the answer is as sincere as it is surprising: “Everything is still a bit uncertain”.

“This week I will meet with my doctors and my team and then we’ll see what happens. At the moment, everything is still a bit uncertain,” said the Swiss in an interview published Friday by the Swiss newspaper “Blick”.

The former world number one, now ranked ninth in the world, has just finished his vacation in Switzerland. After two knee surgeries, he must decide if he is ready for the US Open, to be played from the 30th of this month in New York, although the decision is perhaps more far-reaching: to continue playing or not?

The eight-time Wimbledon champion and doubles gold medallist at the 2008 Olympics admits that uncertainty is a novelty in his career.

“It’s difficult. It was different before. The questions were simple: what’s my ranking? What’s my next tournament? Today it’s more complicated: How do I feel when I start training again? What can I achieve? What are my goals? How can I balance everything with family? What does the rest of the team say? Today I’m a lot more upbeat than I was before, the attitude is different. It really is completely different from ten years ago.”

Federer is equal with Serbia’s Novak Djokovic and Spain’s Rafael Nadal in the number of Grand Slam titles, 20 each. After missing the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which Nadal also missed, the Swiss must decide whether to play a series of tournaments in the remainder of the current season or work on getting himself in perfect shape for 2022. Or not to play at all anymore. And, candidly, he admits that “the pressure is greater” due to the fact that he is no longer a young athlete.

“Before, if you had a locked back, two days would go by and everything would be fine again. Nowadays I could go for two weeks. You’re more patient with the pain you’re in, with yourself, with getting back on the court. Before you took it for granted that you would win a tournament, now you know what’s behind it. The pressure is also greater. It’s like boxing. You have a lot fewer fights. So the concentration on a single match is much higher.”

The calmness of Federer, considered by many to be the greatest tennis player of all time, amazes his interviewer, Steffi Buchli, head of Sports at “Blick,” Switzerland’s largest daily newspaper.

“You have to adapt. That has always been the case in my career. Factors change: fame, success, experience, identity and now this. I’m a quiet guy who takes things with humor. I always see the good in every situation. If it’s not good now, I know it will get better and it could be a lot worse. I am doing very well. My family is healthy. I’ve just turned 40 and I’m still active. Who would have thought it?”

Federer takes the fact that he turned 40 on August 8 with humor: “I felt surprisingly good. It was a bit like the millennium, when people thought computers didn’t work anymore.”

“I woke up in the morning, 40 years old, and realized that everything was still the same as the day before. I was relieved. Everything is fine, 40 is a scary mark for many people..... Suddenly you’re 40 and you think, “Hey, no, unbelievable!”. Suddenly I feel a long way from my 20s. I was a kid then. Now that I’m 40, I feel like I have to be more serious. People used to look at 40-year-olds and they were mega old. Now, all of a sudden, I’m one of them.”

During the interview, Federer showed his limits outside of tennis and laughed about them. He admitted to being “surprisingly bad” at karaoke after trying it once, and said he was close to fainting when a cook asked him to hold a trout while he cleaned its fins and guts.

“What do you want me to do? Surely not, someone else has to do that”, said Federer while holding the fish. When the chef applied the scissors, it became too much for the tennis champion: “This is horror! I can’t even stand the sound. Attention, maybe I’ll faint now.”

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