Many were hoping that Roger Federer would have played in the upcoming Australian Open. Unfortunately, it seemed as the Swiss legend decided not to compete in the first slam of the year as he was not ready to play because of his fitness. Roger got 2 operations on his knee and appearently he wasn’t able to compete for more than 2 hours at the top.
The quarantine issue
However, according to reports, Roger’s real reason for not playing the Australian Open was that he and his family would have struggled with the quarantine. In fact, while he would have been allowed to go out of his hotel room to practice during the 14 days’ confinement, his family couldn’t.
Therefore, Roger’s only solution was to go to Melbourne without his family, but that meant not seeing his wife Mirka and children at least for 5 weeks.
Andre Sa, the Head of Player Liaison for Tennis Australia, revealed:
“I talked to him a month ago, and he had two options. He could come with the whole family and quarantine them. The problem is that Mirka and her children couldn’t leave the room. They would have to stay 14 days in the room. The exception is only for players. He could go out, train, and come back, but the family couldn’t. Mirka did not approve the idea.”
Then he added:
“The other option would be for him to come alone. Only there would be at least five weeks away from family and children. And then he said, ‘Dude, 39, four kids, 20 Grand Slams. I am no longer in time to be away from my family for five weeks’.”
Will Federer play in Rotterdam or Dubai?
At this point is becoming more and more plausible that Roger will play in Rotterdam and Dubai in March. There are also speculations that he might give it a shot to Montpellier (22nd of February). See the ATP Calendar.
Roger Federer in 2021
Now the world no.5, Roger played his last match on the 30th of January 2020 when he surrendered to Novak Djokovic 7-61 6-4 6-3 in the semifinal of the Australian Open (draw).
This year the Swiss owns a composed 0-0 record.
