Roger Federer is actually nervous about his tennis.
The man who won five straight US Open championships during the height of his dominance of the sport is set to play again in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Tuesday night for the first time since 2019. And he's not quite sure how the game that perhaps nobody ever made look more elegant will appear now.
“I haven’t played a singles set in, I don’t know, (Hubert) Hurkacz at Wimbledon maybe, so it’s been five years,” Federer said Monday, referring to his 2021 quarterfinal loss in his last Grand Slam match. “I don’t know how it’s going to go tomorrow. So, there is a lot of uncertainty but a lot of happiness that I can return to Arthur Ashe, a place where I have had so many beautiful moments.”
It's only one set of singles in an exhibition against Andy Roddick and one set of doubles with John McEnroe against Roddick and Andre Agassi. The winner of 20 Grand Slam singles titles should be fine for those.
But a return to tennis beyond that, competing in major tennis tournaments in his mid-40s like Venus and Serena Williams?
“No, no, no, no. No, not at all,” Federer said during a news conference. “Thanks for asking. I wasn’t sure if the question was going to get asked, but I’m happy you did so I can clarify in case anybody thought.”
At 45, Federer still looks fit, and said he enjoys working out in the gym. But he said he goes through long stretches where he is rarely on the court.
His lengthy absence from the US Open has done little to dampen his popularity, based on the amount of people around the grounds who were mentioning his name. The appearance of “Roger Federer” up on the big board for all to see again, ahead of his afternoon practice on Ashe, where Federer collected the trophy every year from 2004-08, was a welcome sight for his fans.
The trip to New York is a stop for Federer on his way to Newport, Rhode Island, where he will be enshrined in the International Tennis Hall of Fame on Saturday.
Federer never really had the chance to say goodbye to New York as a player, because there was no way to know his loss to Grigor Dimitrov in the 2019 quarterfinals would be his last match. He had reached the French Open semifinals and the Wimbledon final earlier that year, falling to Rafael Nadal in Paris and then Novak Djokovic in a fifth-set tiebreaker at the All England Club.
It was easy to imagine him returning to the US Open the next year and making another deep run. But after falling to Djokovic in the semifinals of the Australian Open to begin 2020, he had knee surgery that February, then another procedure in May.
He returned to play in the French Open in 2021 but had to withdraw before his fourth-round match. After the loss to Hurkacz — where he appeared struggling and lost 6-0 in the third set — Federer had another knee surgery that August and knew there would be no more comebacks.
“The knee can’t do it anymore. It’s tired,” he recalled thinking. “The mind can’t be patient even more and wait for another couple years and see what happens.”
Federer knows Tuesday night won't be real tennis, joking that he and Roddick hopefully would be respectful and not try to drop shot each other. But it will be different from when he did return to Ashe a couple of years back to watch.
“They gave me an ovation because they saw me on the big screen, but I just feel, like, tomorrow and I guess today, as well, and Monday next week, it really gives me a true opportunity to say thank you and goodbye, which I think is important for some,” Federer said. "It’s a nice thing to do, for sure."
