Tennis legend Roger Federer won’t be able to compete for Switzerland in the Tokyo Olympics due to a setback he suffered to his injured knee during the grass court season.
Federer confirmed his decision to skip the Olympics in a lengthy post on social media, in which he stated he’d use the time to recover and continue playing competitively on the ATP Tour later this year:
The 20-time Grand Slam singles champion is in the conversation for being the greatest tennis player of all-time. A singles gold medal is missing from his impressive array of hardware, but Federer did win a silver medal at the 2012 London Games, falling to Andy Murray in the final match.
In addition to the runner-up singles finish in 2012, Federer took home a doubles gold when he partnered with fellow Swiss star Stan Wawrinka during the 2008 Beijing Games.
After being away from the court for over a year and undergoing multiple knee surgeries, it’s not a shock to see Federer tread with caution as he tries to make one last run to close out his epic career. He turns 40 on August 8, and needs to do all he can to get his body right at this juncture.
Unfortunately, that also means Federer won’t get another shot at that singles gold. Even if it doesn’t matter a ton to him in the grand scheme of things, you can bet Federer wanted one last crack at it.
Federer flashed some fine form at Wimbledon, advancing all the way to the quarterfinals before Hubert Hurkacz defeated him in straight sets. It’ll be interesting to see how fresh Federer is coming off this latest setback to his injured knee.