(UDHAYAM, COLOMBO) – Roger Federer has cast an element of doubt over whether he will compete in the tennis season’s second grand slam – next month’s French Open.
The Swiss great told CNN Sport that missing the second major of the year to extend his current break from the Tour was “still an option right now” and he will make a firm decision just before the French Open starts.
Federer, who missed six months of last season with a knee injury, surprised the tennis world in March by announcing he would take eight weeks off to recover from a fairytale start to the year.
At 35, and having won the three biggest titles of the year to date – the Australian Open, Indian Wells and the Miami Open – the 18-time grand slam champion decided he needed to rest and would return to action two weeks before the start of the French Open on May 22.
But Federer, who has won the French Open once, in 2009, told CNN Sport: “I don’t think I will skip it, but I will have to see in, say, four or five weeks how I feel when I get on the clay, how my mood is.
“If I feel like I’m not 100% in it, that I’m (not) really fired up – and I believe that is something possible — then it is better to skip it.
“But then I think maybe the break is a long one. It will be 10 weeks until the grass – that could be a bit long, but I will make a definite decision in five weeks. But I think I will play the French.”
