Lausanne (AFP)
Roger Federer will return to the circuit at the ATP tournament in Doha from March 8 to 13, after more than a year of hiatus and two right knee operations, he announced Tuesday on Swiss radio SRF.
"For the first time, I have the feeling that my knee is ready for competition again," said the 39-year-old Swiss champion.
For the former world number 1, who at the end of December gave up on the Australian Open for the first time in his career, the Qatari tournament will be a test on the road to Wimbledon and then to the Tokyo Olympics, the greats goals of his season.
The "King Roger" comes out of a "long break, too long", since he played in 2020 only one tournament in January, the Australian Open, yielding in the semi-finals against the future winner Novak Djokovic.
"This is my first attempt to come back to a tournament. So it was important, for the team as for me, that it was a small tournament and not a big one, with all the stress that that implies," he said. -it develops.
"You have to be ready, mentally and physically, to do five matches in five days," continued the veteran of the circuit, who was initially aiming for a return last fall.
Federer, still 5th in the world rankings, has won everything ... except the Olympic gold in singles (he won gold in doubles with Stan Wawrinka in Beijing in 2008 and silver in singles in London in 2012) .
But since his record-breaking 20th Grand Slam title in Australia in early 2018, he has only played one major final, in 2019 in his Wimbledon garden, where he had two match points against Novak Djokovic before s 'tilt.
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