This Monday, the tennis world received some very bad news: the legendary Roger Federer will not participate in the next edition of the Australian Open, which will take place from 8 to 21 February 2021. The Swiss will continue to recover from his knee injury.
“Roger has decided not to play the Australian Open. He has made progress in the last two months with both his knee and his physique. However, after discussing it with his team, he has decided that it is best to return after the Australian Open,” Tony Godsick (Federer’s agent) said.
Federer will thus miss this tournament for the first time in his career (he had played in every edition since his debut in 1998).
The 20-time Grand Slam winner has not been able to play an official match since January of this year. His last competition was (curiously) the 2020 Australian Open, at that time he was already suffering from severe pain in his right knee.
He subsequently underwent two operations on his meniscus, which prevented him from playing for the rest of the 2020 season.
The first Grand Slam of the year had been delayed three weeks and Federer had said he was in “a tight race” to be fit for the tournament, but he seems to have lost it.
