Roger Federer hopes–and also thinks–that his semifinal loss to Novak Djokovic won’t be the last we see of him at the Australian Open.
A heavy underdog due mostly to being less than 100 percent physically in the wake of two five-set thrillers earlier in the tournament, Federer fell to Novak Djokovic 7-6(1), 6-4, 6-3 on Thursday night.
The 38-year-old, who dealt with a groin problem during a quarterfinal against Tennys Sandgren in which he saved seven match points, got off to a surprisingly strong start in the semis. He raced to a 4-1 lead in the opening set and seized a 0-40 advantage to go up 5-1 only to see Djokovic come back and hold. The second-ranked Serb eventually broke to stay in the set and went on to dominate a tiebreaker.
From there it was just about all over for Federer, even though each of the next two sets was decided by just a single service break.
“You never know what the future holds,” Federer said when asked about his chances of being back at Melbourne Park in 2021. “Especially (at) my age, you don’t know. I’m confident; I’m happy how I’m feeling, to be honest. I got through a good, nice training block. (I have) no plans to retire. From that standpoint, we’ll see how the year goes, how everything is with the family. We’ll go from there. Of course, I hope to be back.”
And does the Swiss think he can still win slams?
“Yes. Yes, I do believe that. I think by having the year that I had last year, also with what I have in my game, how I’m playing, I do feel that. Yeah.”
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good effort by Fed