Roger Federer left the door open for his retirement from Roland Garros this Saturday, after the marathon (3 hours and 39 minutes) third-round match in which he defeated German Dominic Koepfer well into and at midnight in Paris. “I have to evaluate the risk of continuing or not. I knew I could play a fifth set, but not how I will get up tomorrow (for today,” said the Swiss at the post-crash press conference.
“These are different times for me,” confessed Federer, who attributes the doubts about his continuity to the fact that his body no longer works as before at 39 years old. and the little rest that, if it continues, he would have before Halle, where he likes to start the grass season before heading to his garden at Wimbledon.
In any case, the Swiss positively valued the match, which he described as a “battle”. “Normally you don’t see such contested sets on clay. Someone makes a break and tries to pull forward with that. I appreciate it very much. Dominic played a great game and I hope he does well for the rest of the year,” he said. At times, he said, he tried to “live the experience” of playing an intense game in the Chatrier: “Just flow.”
The Basel genius assured that he would like to be in the position “of Rafa (Nadal) or Novak (Djokovic)”: “They feel good, they know that if they play well they win.” “I don’t have that feeling now”, sentenced. “I have to think about the season and the risk of continuing to play.”