‘Everybody is holding me back’ – Roger Federer eager to return in positive injury update
Roger Federer has revealed he will be allowed to return to running next week and is “working as hard as he is allowed to” as he steps up his recovery from knee surgery.
20-time Grand Slam champion Federer has been missing since Wimbledon last year when he decided to undergo a third knee surgery after it caused him considerable grief in his heaviest defeat at the All England Club.
Federer revealed back in November that he would be “surprised” if he features at Wimbledon, but is hoping to make a return by Summer 2022.
As a result of such a prolonged absence, some have questioned whether Federer will be able to return to his Slam-winning best and may face a “reality check” upon his return to the tour.
However, winning a Grand Slam after a significant lay-off is not outside the realms of possibility for the Swiss Maestro, especially considering he has pulled it off once before when he won Wimbledon in 2017 without playing for six months prior.
Similarly, fellow Slam rival and now 21-time Grand Slam champion Rafael Nadal just won both the Australian Open and the Melbourne Summer Set despite a five-month injury absence.
Such a triumph further emphasises that it would be unwise to rule out the ‘Big Three’ of Federer, Nadal, and Novak Djokovic even with the quality of the tour and the lengthy periods on the side-lines.
Speaking to one of his sponsors Credit Suisse, Federer said “I feel like I will know a whole lot more [this] coming April, you know, where my body is going to be like.
“Until now, I wasn’t really allowed to run yet and do the heavy workloads with jumps and stop and goes.
“So I hope that that’s all going to hopefully in the next couple of weeks. And then we’ll see how the body will react to that. And that’s obviously what I will need to return to the tennis court.
“So I think this question is better answered maybe by April/May. But for now, of course the drive is there. I’m really motivated to do my work, what I’m allowed to do, I did it all again this morning,” the Swiss legend revealed.
“I am back in the gym again tomorrow. I’m working as hard as I’m allowed to. So it’s still good times even though it’s a little bit slow, because I would love to do way more but the doctors and everybody [else] is holding me back a little bit.”
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