Roger Federer will miss almost four months of the tennis season after undergoing knee surgery. ... [+]
Roger Federer has set his sights on Wimbledon after the 20-time major winner had knee surgery that will see him miss the French Open.
Federer, 38, announced the news on Thursday morning on his Twitter feed.
Here is his statement:
“My right knee has been bothering me for a little while. I hoped it would go away but after an examination and discussion with my team, I decided to have arthroscopic surgery in Switzerland yesterday. After the procedure, the doctors confirmed that it was the right thing to have done and are very confident of a full recovery. As a result I will have to miss Dubai, Indian Wells, Bogota, Miami and the French Open. I am grateful for everyone’s support. I can’t wait to be back playing again soon, see you on the grass.”
Federer currently has 7,130 points on the men’s ATP Tour. He will lose the 720 points he won at Roland-Garros last year, and a combined 2,460 points he picked up in Dubai (500 points), Indian Wells (600), Miami (1,000 points), Madrid (180) and Rome (180). He will drop out of the top four but is still likely to be comfortably ranked inside the Top 10 heading into the grass-court season.
Although Federer has had a relatively injury-free career, he has had surgery on his knee before. In February 2016, he had a knee operation after he sustained an injury while drawing a bath for his young children. That procedure had been the first operation he had required in his long career.
The third-ranked Swiss superstar, the world’s best-paid tennis player with $93.4 million in annual earnings according to FORBES, reached the semifinals at the French Open last year, where he was beaten by eventual champion Rafael Nadal of Spain in a windy semifinal match.
Federer missed 2016 Roland-Garros because of a back injury. He then skipped the tournament in 2017 and 2018 to better prepare himself for the faster grass courts. Roland-Garros, which is played on red clay, is Federer’s least successful Grand Slam event, with his lone victory dating back to 2009.
Federer may return on the grass-courts of Halle, Germany in June, an event he has won a record ten times.
The Wimbledon Championships, where Federer is an eight-time champion, start June 29. The Swiss right-hander lost last year’s Wimbledon finals to current world No. 1 Novak Djokovic of Serbia in five sets, after failing to convert two match points.
Federer’s last official match was at last month’s Australian Open, where he was beaten in the semifinals by eventual winner Djokovic. He then traveled to South Africa with his long-time rival and friend, Nadal, who helped him raise $3.5 million for his charity, the Roger Federer Foundation, in a match on February 7 in Cape Town that was attended by 51,945 spectators, a new world record for a tennis match.
Federer’s long injury break comes during one of the busiest years in tennis, with the tennis event starting at the Tokyo Olympics from July 25. Federer, the most successful male player of the Open era, has never won the Olympic gold singles medal. He triumphed in doubles with his partner, Stan Wawrinka, during the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
