Roger Federer is out of the Rio Olympics–and everything else this season.
Federer, who has been dealing with various physical problems in 2016 and most recently struggled with a knee injury, announced on Tuesday that will not play again until 2017. Thus the 34-year-old Swiss will miss the Olympics, the U.S. Open, and the World Tour Finals.
He posted the following on Facebook:
“Dear Fans,
I’m extremely disappointed to announce that I will not be able to represent Switzerland at the Olympic Games in Rio and that I will also miss the remainder of the season. Considering all options after consulting with my doctors and my team, I have made the very difficult decision to call an end to my 2016 season as I need more extensive rehabilitation following my knee surgery earlier this year. The doctors advised that if I want to play on the ATP World Tour injury free for another few years, as I intend to do, I must give both my knee and body the proper time to fully recover. It is tough to miss the rest of the year. However, the silver lining is that this experience has made me realize how lucky I have been throughout my career with very few injuries. The love I have for tennis, the competition, tournaments and of course you, the fans remains intact. I am as motivated as ever and plan to put all my energy towards coming back strong, healthy and in shape to play attacking tennis in 2017.
Thanks for your continued support.
Roger”
welp
I had that same operation a few years ago and only now has the knee returned to normal.
Bad news for tennis
???? this sucks
I’m most likely going to QF and beyond of Cincinnati this year and I was thinking I’d see him there because he always goes far there but now this…I read that he will most likely not be a top 16 seed in Melbourne next year and that he will be at his lowest ranking in like fifteen years by end of the season. Crap I hope the ranking doesn’t drop too much. If he wasn’t a high seed at Melbourne and got someone like Djokovic early then he could be in serious trouble in rankings. The good thing is that this indicates that he plans to play for more years to come because he’s trying so hard to prolong his career by taking this extra time to heal the injury.
Wow, I just read the news about Fed. I am sorry that he will have to miss the rest of the year.
It sounds like he needs more serious and extensive surgery on his knee. I am glad that he is taking time off to deal with it properly.
I wish him the best if luck for a good recovery.
He will be missed.
Now that I read Fed’s statement more carefully, it sounds like he needs more rehab for the knee to fully heal. This has to be tough for him. But he has been fortunate to be free from serious injury throughout most of his career.
Yup… For the first time, I get the feeling we will be seeing Tennis without the great man soon….. Never been his fan but massive respect for everything he has done and achieved. I hope he can still produce his magic in 2017 but realistically speaking, it will be veyr very tough after such a long injury lay-off. His ranking will be very low as well come AO 2017.
Best of luck to Federer!
Sad day for tennis. I’m a Rafan, but massive respect for Federer and everything he’s achieved and for all he’s done to promote tennis throughout the world. Hope both he and Rafa can come back healthy and “play a few more years” as both want to do. We shall not see their like again.
I feel really sad. Fedal is truly over. I am not very confident of Rafa coming back to his top form but I think he will somehow win the 10th RG crown.
I hope Andy keeps up his good form and doesn’t get injured again. Otherwise we will have the weakest era and boring Djok routinely winning everything unless a young gun steps up to the plate.
Rafa will always be the best!
Nole’s form is a bit suspect as well.
It has been speculated that Fed aggravated his knee injury when he fell in fifth set against Raonic:
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/sports/tennis/federer-to-miss-olympics-and-rest-of-season/ar-BBuU2kk?li=AA54y7&ocid=spartandhp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LpStjGZEoA
I had a bad feeling about that fall when it happened. Fed said in his post-match presser that he wouldn’t know until he has a chance to rest and see how it felt the next day. But it can’t have helped the knee. You just don’t see Fed go down on the grass at Wimbledon like that.
It seems that age has caught up with Fed. While I was not a fan, I have absolute respect for what he has done in the sport of tennis. His love for the game is unquestioned.
I feel privileged to have seen the great rivalry of Fedal. We will not see anything like it again.
Tennis will go on without Fedal.
someone on Twitter announced that Shapovalov will be the savior of tennis when Fed retires. LOLOLOL.
It doesn’t take 6-9 months to get over a meniscus repair for the vast majority of professional athletes.
Could be a Marinectomy.
of course tennis will go on. What a moronic comment! But tennis will be poorer without Fedal.
What goes around comes around:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CodcuERWcAAEMnv.jpg
I do not think I am ever going to see the equivalent of Fedal in my lifetime….Looking at the young stars, I think too much money has spoiled them. Tomic did not bother to hold his racket properly because he is worth 10 million, Kyrgios would rather play some other game and when the going gets tough he cannot wait to get off the court….
Rafa will always be the best.
In short, the nextgen seems to lack fire in the belly. Hope somebody proves me wrong…