By Erik Gudris | Monday, March 17, 2014

 

Roger Federer revealed how he finally recovered from an ongoing back issue that affected him for most of last season.

Photo Credit: AP
 

Roger Federer is happy to be feeling better after dealing with what he described as a "lingering" back issue that started this time last year.

Federer revealed that the back injury that affected him for most of the 2013 season started during his second round match at Indian Wells last year. Though he felt better a few weeks later, the issue was not far from his mind.

"Just kept on lingering, lingering, lingering, and then eventually it went away," Federer said on Saturday. "But, you know, being sore every day leaves its sort of, I don't know ‑‑ scarred. You're scarred a little bit. Then I started to train again lightly, you know, as I could, and then eventually I trained normal again."

Though Federer said he felt fine during the early summer, it was at the Hamburg event while warming up from playing soccer that he felt another back spasm. Federer subsequently lost early at that tournament and then began to question his whole training method.

"Then I really like questioned everything. I think that time I got hurt was more ‑‑ I think I was warming up because they have like an indoor like arena there so I was always playing like soccer a little bit as a warmup. I think from playing soccer I hurt my back, just like from passing around. I think it came from something else, but I just realized my back was really fragile. That's when I put everything in question and really had to rethink my routines."

That included sitting down with a team of physios, conditioning coaches and doctors to develop not only a plan to heal the issue but strengthen his back as well through adjustments in core exercises Federer was already doing.

"We just talked about it all and laid it all out on the table what I've been doing and what everybody thinks what I should do from then on. Then the problem is it's not a quick fix. It was, Let's see how you feel in two weeks, two months, six months. It was a long‑term plan, so you're very unsure still if you're going same direction. Because it's not like one day to the next having no pain. Tennis players are in pain quite often. So it's tricky to just let it all go and say, "It's normal to be in pain." So I had to, you know, just accept that as well, that you're just going to be in pain, you know, a little bit, like every other player, too. Don't believe you're not going to be in pain. It's just part of being a tennis player."

Federer believe his success this season, that includes winning the Dubai title, comes from not having to worry about his health as much as he once did.

"I can wake up in the morning without feeling sore. I can go to bed not feeling like, I hope I feel better tomorrow. I don't have these thoughts going through my mind and I'm not worried sort of every single sort of minute of the day. So automatically you're more inspired and you're more happy as a person then in the process, for sure."

Federer lost in this year's Indian Wells men's final to Novak Djokovic. Federer is scheduled to compete at the upcoming Sony Open Tennis event in Miami.