{"id":23929,"date":"2016-08-25T08:00:49","date_gmt":"2016-08-25T15:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/federer-tried-to-play-olympics-us-open\/"},"modified":"2016-08-25T08:00:49","modified_gmt":"2016-08-25T15:00:49","slug":"federer-tried-to-play-olympics-us-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/sports\/federer-tried-to-play-olympics-us-open\/","title":{"rendered":"Federer tried to play Olympics, US Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK<\/strong> \u2014 Maybe Roger Federer could play the Olympics and skip the U.S. Open. Or sit out the Rio Games and make it to New York.<\/p>\n

The 17-time major champion contemplated both scenarios, holding out hope as long as he could that he\u2019d find a way to enter at least one of the big events in August.<\/p>\n

In the end, his balky left knee wouldn\u2019t allow him to do either.<\/p>\n

At a meeting with doctors and trainers, Federer recalled, \u201cEverybody said, \u2018You need a break \u2014 right now.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

So the Swiss great announced in late July that he\u2019d miss the rest of the season, by far the longest layoff of a remarkably healthy career.<\/p>\n

Federer, who turned 35 this month, was in Manhattan on Wednesday to talk about playing tennis next year at the new Laver Cup team event. But for the first time since 1999, he\u2019s not preparing for the U.S. Open.<\/p>\n

He underwent an arthroscopic procedure in February to repair torn cartilage \u2014 the first surgery of his career. Federer hasn\u2019t played since his Wimbledon loss to Milos Raonic, in which he fell awkwardly and called the trainer to check on what had become a nagging knee problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never really had pain, funny enough,\u201d Federer said Wednesday. \u201cIt just felt unstable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then there was the swelling.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it\u2019s swollen, you can\u2019t compete at the best level,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

An MRI didn\u2019t show anything distinctly different from before. For all his upbeat talk Wednesday about his future, Federer let some doubts seep in when he discussed the mystery of what\u2019s going on in the knee.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why, I think, it\u2019s been to some extent frustrating,\u201d he said. \u201cAt least if I had a lot of pain, or if the scan shows you thoroughly what exactly the problem is, then I think it\u2019s easier to take a decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really hope I\u2019m not being misled by the knee that it doesn\u2019t feel painful. But it\u2019s just not 100 percent. That\u2019s why I just think the beating that I got in Wimbledon and the clay court season was just so complicated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Federer, who also skipped the French Open because of a bad back, didn\u2019t play tennis for five or six weeks and just now is starting to do a few things on the court. He\u2019s focused on exercises to strengthen his left quadriceps, such as squats, so he\u2019ll be physically ready once he ramps back up to his full workouts to prepare for January\u2019s Australian Open.<\/p>\n

It might have been possible to return for a couple of tournaments late in 2016, Federer said, but there was no point once he knew he would miss the bulk of the fall schedule.<\/p>\n

He reflected back to this past January, when the Laver Cup concept was unveiled at the Australian Open, and marveled: \u201cMy God, I never thought I was going to have a year the way I had it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He hurt his knee while preparing a bath for his twin daughters, then later saw his record 65-appearance streak at major tournaments end. Federer won\u2019t win a title in a season for the first time since 2000. And now that he missed the Rio Games, his career could end without an Olympic singles gold medal.<\/p>\n

He insisted he hasn\u2019t missed competition yet, though maybe that will change when the U.S. Open starts next week. The quiet away from the spotlight has been nice, he said \u2014 even if he quickly amended that to: \u201cI\u2019ve got four kids \u2014 it\u2019s a different quiet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back in New York, site of five of his titles, Federer said he watched a lot of volleyball during the Olympics and spoke to Andy Murray after the Brit won gold. Despite Murray\u2019s recent run, Federer still believes Novak Djokovic is the favorite at the U.S. Open.<\/p>\n

No matter that the world\u2019s top-ranked player has struggled by his standards since completing the career Grand Slam at Roland Garros \u2014 Djokovic is just too good on the hard courts and too successful against Murray, Federer said.<\/p>\n

If the Serb does win to move within four major titles of Federer\u2019s record, the man he\u2019s chasing will be forced to watch from afar.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a way it\u2019s painful, just because I love this place,\u201d Federer said, \u201cand it\u2019s hard watching the Olympics \u2014 I would have loved to have competed there as well. … Would have loved to win a medal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014 Maybe Roger Federer could play the Olympics and skip the U.S. Open. Or sit out the Rio Games and make it to New York. The 17-time major champion contemplated both scenarios, holding out hope as long as he could that he\u2019d find a way to enter at least one of the big […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":23930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-23929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23929"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=23929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}