Time is running out for Roger Federer. The Swiss who will celebrate his 39th birthday in August has just been re-operated on his right knee. A recovery that will deprive him of competition at least until the end of the year.

Roger Federer, holder of the Grand Slam coronation record (20), was reoperated on the right knee recently and will not return to the circuit until 2021, he announced on social networks on Wednesday. "A few weeks ago, having been delayed during my initial rehabilitation, I had to undergo a new rapid arthroscopy on my right knee," writes Federer, who will turn 39 in early August, on Twitter. "Now, as I did before the 2017 season, I plan to take the time to be 100% ready to play at my best level. I will miss the fans and the circuit a lot but I can't wait to review everything the world at the start of the 2021 season, "he said.

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- Roger Federer (@rogerfederer) June 10, 2020

Operated for the first time on this same knee on February 19, the former world No. 1, currently No. 4, initially planned to return to the courts for the grass season in late June. But the world tennis calendar has since been turned upside down by the coronavirus pandemic and the ATP circuit has been stopped since early March and at least until the end of July. And the postponement to the summer of 2021 of the Tokyo Games also postponed by a year the last big challenge of his career, the quest for Olympic gold in singles, which has eluded him until then.

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In 2014, a first operation followed by an auspicious period

The Bâlois won the silver medal in singles in 2012 in London and won the double with Stan Wawrinka four years earlier in Beijing. He did not participate in the Rio Games in 2016. Before these two interventions in the space of a few months, Federer had already undergone the same type of operation for the first time, in February 2016, but on the left knee. He was then 34 years old. It had rather worked for him: when he returned to the circuit in early 2017, after a six-month break, he immediately triumphed at the Australian Open, then at Wimbledon six months later.

It remains to be seen how, soon to be 39, he will recover from these two operations, even slight, and if he will be able to repeat the same kind of performance. Since the start of the year, Federer has only played one tournament, the Australian Open. He reached the last four, before losing, physically diminished, against Novak Djokovic, future winner of the first Grand Slam lift of the season.