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Federer on clay? It may be his best path to full fitness by Wimbledon

By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Thursday March 11, 2021

Now that Roger Federer has one event in the books in 2021, the Swiss can start to think more about where he will play during the spring.

After his 3-6, 6-1, 7-5 loss to Nikoloz Basilashvili on Thursday the 20-times major champion reiterated the notion that he plans to do whatever it takes to be fully prepared for the 2021 grass-court season.

Tennis Express

“I come from so far away that I'm actually happy that I was able to play back-to-back three-set matches against top players,” Federer told reporters on Thursday in Doha. “That's an important step forward to me. Like I said, I'm not 100 percent yet. I can feel it. I can see it, you know. From that standpoint, important is to be 10 percent by the grass court season. I know that. I'm still building up.”

As it turns out, Federer’s desire to be at 100 percent for the grass-court season, which begins on June 7, the day after the Roland-Garros men’s singles final, might make it more plausible that he plays during the clay season.

Federer says that playing on clay will likely be his only chance to get matches before grass season begins.

“I think matches are important,” he said. “What comes before the grass courts are the clay courts. So from that standpoint, I have no choice but to play on clay if I want to play matches.”

Federer hasn’t played on clay since Roland-Garros in 2019, but he seems relatively confident that he’ll be able to handle the rigors of the surface.

“It could be good for me, the clay,” he said. “It could be bad for me, the clay. So I will only know in practice, but I don't think it's going to be bad, to be honest.”

We can expect to hear more about Federer’s spring schedule in the next few weeks. All we know now is that he's skipping Dubai, has already pulled out of Miami, and may not be able to play on anything but clay until the grass season starts.



“I assume I will play some clay,” he said. “The question is what? We have a vague idea, but we said let's wait for Doha and potentially Dubai to potentially make any decisions for that, and fitness comes first and then we'll see what comes after. At the end everything is geared towards the grass. So whatever makes me be 100 percent there, I will do.”

Federer says he will chat with his team over the next 24 hours to see if he is fit and ready to play Dubai next week.

Playing his first matches in over a year has certainly taxed his body, but he’s not surprised by that.

“I honestly expected to feel this way,” he said. “You know, the whole shoulder is really, I feel the muscle pain around that. I didn't expect it to be honest here in the shoulder because I have been serving the whole time, but that comes I think with the pressure and just, you know, in matches you just go that extra percent, 5 percent? I don't know what it is.”

He added: “Overall the body is actually fine. I'm happy. You know, it could be much worse. I mean, there was always, you know, a little bit within me that thought, you know, how am I going to feel after a brutal first-round match? That's what I was thinking about going into the tournament, and how would I feel the second round? I was always worried that maybe I couldn't play it for whatever reason. I felt fine. You know, little stiff in the morning, but that's totally normal I think.”

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