Roger Federer may be planning a comeback on European clay courts in 2019. “I’m thinking about it,” said the 37-year-old Swiss on the fringes of the Laver Cup in Chicago: “The idea hasn’t left the table yet. “By the end of the year, I’ll have made up my mind.”
Federer avoided the red ashes including the French Open in Paris in 2017 and 2018 and instead prepared for the short grass court season culminating in Wimbledon. Should he play the clay court tour in spring 2019, he would have to change his complete planning: “That would already influence my training in December. If you play on ashes, it changes everything.”
With 20 titles in the four Grand Slam tournaments, Federer is the record holder in this statistic. He won Wimbledon eight times, the Australian Open six times, the US Open five times. In 2009 he won his only title at the French Open so far. Most recently he was in the final in Roland Garros 2011, which he lost in four sets against the Spaniard Rafael Nadal.
Federer won his last title on clay in 2015 at the 250cc event in Istanbul, a few weeks later he lost to his compatriot Stan Wawrinka in the quarter-finals of Paris. In the last two years, Federer had also justified his renunciation by the fact that he could not expect to win tournaments as well.