After setback during rehab, Roger Federer joins the world in pause

If not particularly surprising, it surely is sad to know that Roger Federer will not be playing any more tennis this year. A tweet he posted earlier today read, “A few weeks ago, having experienced a setback during my initial rehabilitation, I had to have an additional quick arthroscopic procedure on my right knee. Now, much like leading up to the 2017 season, I plan to take the necessary time to be 100% ready to play at my highest level. I will be missing my fans and the tour dearly but, I will look forward to seeing everyone back on tour at the start of the 2021 season.”

The word “setback” intrigues. Just how painful has it been for Federer since the surgery he had in February? How has this year’s quarantine made it harder for him to rehab and even start to play tennis again? For that matter, how badly was Federer’s knee bothering him in January, during his run to the semis of the Australian Open?

There’s a good chance we’ll never know. One aspect of Federer’s approach to the game is that the extent of his physical condition is usually kept under wraps. Of course, there have been visible injuries: his groin clearly troubled him when he was beaten by Novak Djokovic in Melbourne, and at the 2019 US Open, back and neck pain surfaced in the late stages of his loss to Grigor Dimitrov.

To his credit, Federer does not go to great lengths to explain just how debilitating his injuries have been. Even more, tennis fans have been spoiled by the way he has so elegantly returned from injuries, Federer seemingly as indestructible and sleek as a vintage Mercedes. Leave it to Federer to miss the last six months of 2016 and return to action armed with a much-improved backhand and a title run at the 2017 Australian Open.

Like everyone else, Federer knows that should there be pro tennis in 2020, the fans and tour he will be missing are not likely to be the same. These are incredibly challenging days for event organizers. As tournament staffs seek ways to stage tournaments, they have explored new logistical protocols, with vast and complicated implications for everything from line calls to player entourages, international travel regulations, accommodations, spectator involvement—and so much more. The tennis calendar is also in flux, including a postponement until 2021 of one of Federer’s passions, the Laver Cup.

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Federer turns 39 in August and is currently ranked fourth in the world. That is rare air, Federer up there with such maestros of longevity as Pancho Gonzales, Ken Rosewall and Jimmy Connors. Yet even if he wasn’t hindered by his knee injury, it’s hard to imagine Federer could be in peak battle form during this year of quarantine. He may be a vintage Mercedes, but his chassis still has a great many miles on it. Amid these many complications, why not take time for a procedure, pull the curtain on the entire year and continue the rehab process?

Certainly, there are many things more important these days than if tennis tournaments and familiar icons are on hand to participate. And yet, Federer’s absence too is but another plot twist in this incredibly difficult, unprecedented year for the entire planet.

Maybe it’s also fitting that Federer is taking a pause from tennis. One of Federer’s most appealing aspects is his unsurpassed command of time—in everything from the tranquil way he conducts himself with people, to the time he devotes to practice, to his deep appreciation of tennis history, to the way on the court he moves through time and space.

But what has happened to the world this year has altered everyone’s relationship to time and movement, right down to how we even exist.

“For the first time in modern human history we are not being asked to do,” wrote Heather Wallace in a very thoughtful article on Medium that was published in April. “We are allowed to be. We have been given the space to feel.  To heal. To assess our relationship with ourselves and the world around us.”

So it will also go for Roger Federer. We await the return of all. In time.