'There is also the time factor for Roger Federer', says former Swiss player

Roger Federer has had two major surgeries in the past few months. The Swiss phenomenon seemed well on the way to returning to the field as early as 2020, but a setback in the rehabilitation phase will force him to stand still until the beginning of next season. After the second operation on the same knee, the 20-time Grand Slam champion thought it appropriate to take all the time necessary to regain 100% of the form. There are many insiders that Federer would have been lucky to have this problem during the pandemic, as he won't be forced to skip his favorite dates. Wimbledon and the Tokyo Olympics have in fact been postponed to next year, while great uncertainty still reigns over the conduct of the US Open. Swiss Fed Cup captain Heinz Gunthardt believes that no winners come out of this situation.

Gunthardt on Roger Federer

“I completely disagree," Heinz Gunthardt said. "There are basically no winners in sports during the pandemic. If there is no game, there will be no winners. There is also the time factor; a 25-year-old player can bridge a phase more easily than a 39-year-old. So Roger Federer is definitely not a winner of the Corona crisis for me,” he added. He also talked about Novak Djokovic's Adria Tour: “The thought behind it was certainly a good one," Gunthardt said. "But Djokovic could not assess the risk of infection during the Adriatic tour. Very little was known about the virus. And even today, the experts disagree on how to deal with it. The bottom line is that Djokovic took a risk with the tour that he could not estimate. Unfortunately God's gunshot backfired,” Gunthardt finished. Both circuits have adopted the same line on the ranking issue, thus allowing players to freely choose which tournaments to participate in. The ATP tour is to resume on July 13th. Some of the tournaments that could not be conducted are to be played in the second half of the year. In a recent interview with Ubitennis, the ATP chairman discussed how he plans to achieve this. He said, “We are working on the possibility of a four-weeks clay swing after the US Open. The best-case scenario would be to have the North American swing during the summer, then the clay, then Asia, and then the ATP Finals.” This seems like a good plan. The ATP chairman said that it should save 80% of the tour after the cancelation of the grass-court tournaments. 

from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/302UVgu