ATP: The hard way back: Federer’s flawless comeback remains the exception

Roger Federer made a fabulous comeback in 2017. For other superstars like Novak Djokovic and Co. the road back is a difficult and lengthy process.

When Roger Federer thinks back to his Australian Open victory in 2017, he can still easily get excited today: “It was the most incredible success of my career. No title win was more emotional for me,” says the Swiss maestro. Everything about this triumph was amazing: The fact that, just five years after his last Grand Slam coup, he once again won one of the outstanding major tournaments at the tender age of 35. But even more so this fabulous sprint from zero to one hundred, the victory directly from a six-month injury break, right at the first major work assignment: “Honestly: There are still days when I think: Did that really happen. Or do I only dream all this,” says the father of four, who had just suffered an acceptable defeat at the Masters in Miami. He lost the number one position in the world ranking again, but who – including Federer himself – would have thought that he would rise to number one again and win three Grand Slam titles since his comeback?

However, a look at some of Federer’s toughest competitors in recent years shows that his grandiose re-entry into the professional travelling circus is by no means the norm. Top cracks such as Novak Djokovic, Stan Wawrinka and Andy Murray had imitated the Swiss’s radical course and decided to take a longer break from the match because of their more or less serious injuries, but they are far away from a similar parforcing ride as Federer. On the contrary: Djokovic, the dominant player of the years 2011 to 2016, is desperate for a serious permanent crisis in the early phase of the 2018 season. Since the 30-year-old Serb won the last missing Grand Slam title in Paris one and a half years ago, things have been going downhill slowly – partly because of a complicated elbow blasphemy, but also because of a sustained lack of motivation, an unspoken crisis of meaning. At the Masters in Miami, as in Indian Wells, the “Djoker” suffered a bitter opening defeat, with the Belgrade player looking pale, uninspired and even listless in the 3:6 and 4:6 defeat against the Frenchman Benoit Paire. Apparently he had overestimated his physical possibilities anew, a competition break, expert Jim Courier noted, “would certainly have done him a lot better.

But Djokovic is not alone with his malaise. Federer, by far the oldest of the elite players of men’s tennis, is also the only one who doesn’t complain about physical problems: “The packed program in the tennis year is wearing the stars down,” says former world number one Mats Wilander, “the demands on the best are enormous” Federer’s toughest career rival Rafael Nad. Nadal made a similarly successful comeback in 2017 as Federer, but since his playing style is much more physically demanding and challenging, he suffered from all kinds of aches and pains again last late autumn. At the ATP World Championships in London he only played one match, distorted by pain, then gave up. Now he allegedly wants to return to the start of the clay court season.

The man who Nadal replaced as number 2017 will have to wait even longer for his first mission after injury. After a long postponed hip surgery in Melbourne in January, Andy Murray should consider himself lucky to be able to return to the travelling circus for the grass court season. But that is by no means certain. The question always arises as to whether one can find the old self-confidence, the necessary confidence in one’s own body,” says observer John McEnroe, “Andy’s playing also lives from optimal fitness, a special suppleness and agility. It’s gonna be a very hard road for him.”

Similar to Murray, Stan Wawrinka made his first comeback attempt at the beginning of the season. But the return mission was a bitter failure, just as it was with “Sir Andy”. The 32-year-old Swiss quickly corrected his time horizon for a successful re-entry and cancelled his participation in the Masters competitions in Indian Wells and Miami. He must “have patience,” says Wawrinka, “and it is imperative to give the body the time it needs,” and Wawrinka also wants to make the next attempt for the clay court season, at least that is his intention.

Many of the top players could then slowly but surely get back to the Centre Court competition in the ash field competitions – while the champion of all classes, Roger Federer, takes a relaxed, self-chosen time-out. Just like in the last, masterly successful, masterly clocked tennis year.