20-time Grand Slam champion Roger Federer said he absolutely required a surgery after Wimbledon as he hopes to be able to compete at the Laver Cup in late September.
Following a straight-set defeat versus Hubert Hurkacz in the Wimbledon quarterfinal, Federer decided to undergo a knee surgery.
Federer has been making a good progress in recent months and his target date is the Laver Cup, which is scheduled to take place between September 23-25.
“I knew [my knee surgery and recovery] would be a long process but the operation was necessary, I couldn’t have played like this after Wimbledon. Now I hope to be able to get back into the Laver Cup in September,” Federer said an interview with Coopzeitung, per Sportskeeda.
Federer on activities he wants to do once he gets back to fully healthy
“When I recover, I’ll go skiing, of course. Maybe I’ll go golfing again, that wasn’t possible in the last few years. Not now with my knee anyway, and as is well known, I used to suffer from back problems,” Federer said. “Once I went to a round of golf with my mother for her 60th birthday and I really wanted to play along. After that, I suffered from back pain for a week. So I let it go from there. If I start golfing, I won’t do it alone, but together with Mirka.”
Federer definitely plans to return to tennis later this year but for how long he will play remains a mistery.
However, one thing is clear – Federer definitely won’t have a crowded schedule once he returns.
“[Whether my family will travel with me again for tennis tournaments] is a problem that I would really like to have. Because that would mean that everything is going well with the knee and the comeback,” Federer said. “The advantage is that I won’t play 20 tournaments a year like I used to. My program will be manageable, and that’s why I’ll say: sometimes they’ll be there, sometimes they won’t.”