After the world number two Novak Djokovic defeated an injured Roger Federer in straight sets in the men’s singles semifinal at the ongoing Australian Open, the latter refused to admit that it was his last time in Melbourne and said he has no retirement plan yet.
“You never know what the future holds. Especially my age, you don’t know. I’m confident. I’m happy how I’m feeling, to be honest. I got through a good, nice training block. No plans to retire,” Federer was quoted as saying by PTI via AFP.
“From that standpoint, we’ll see how the year goes, how everything is with the family. We’ll go from there. Of course, I hope to be back,” he said while speaking to the reporters at the post-match conference following his defeat to Djokovic.
The former world number one also believes he is still a force to be reckoned with and accepted that he was confident of adding more to his tally of 20 Grand Slams despite playing the semifinal with an injury.
“Yes, I do believe that (about winning the ongoing Australian Open). I think by having the year that I had last year, also with what I have in my game, how I’m playing, I do feel that, yeah,” Federer said.
Djokovic won 7-6(1), 6-4, 6-3 at the Rod Laver Arena on Thursday to stand one match shy of winning his eighth title in Melbourne. Federer gave his heart out in the first set as he took a wide lead of 4-1 before serving for the set at 5-3. However, Djokovic resisted with all his might and made it 5-5 before playing an immaculate tiebreaker and dramatically winning the first set.
“Today was horrible, to go through what I did. Nice entrance, nice sendoff, and in between is one to forget because you know you have a three per cent chance to win,” Federer said about the semifinal match.
The 38-year-old was also forced to take a medical time-out due to the groin injury which he suffered in the quarterfinal match against Tennys Sandgren. However, the defeat took a toll on the 38-yar-old’s mentality and the time-out did not help either. His movement lacked the same intensity and the pace of the services had also gone down.
“It’s frustrating. (But) I don’t think I would have gone on the court if I felt like I had no chance to win. We saw I was still being able to make a match out of it,” Federer said about his injury which he admitted was nothing serious.