‘No Bigger Roger Fan Than Me’: Alexander Zverev Discusses Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer’s Comeback

The way with which Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal ended their 2021 season, it looked as if the future might not look completely bright for both the legends of the game. Federer, who was out of competition after a quarter-final loss to Hubert Hurkacz in Wimbledon, had his third knee surgery.

The Swiss Maestro is slowly getting back to shape as he amps up training. On the other hand, Rafael Nadal’s position is in a better state when compared to Federer as the Spaniard recovered from his foot injury and also made a comeback at the Mubadala World Tennis Championships last week.

With uncertainty hovering over how Federer and Nadal’s 2022 season is going to pan out, Alexander Zverev talked about them in a Eurosport podcast alongside Boris Becker.

Alexander Zverev gives his two cents on Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal’s comeback

Zverev has always maintained that he is a huge Roger Federer fan. But, the German was apprehensive over a successful comeback for the Swiss Maestro.

“There’s no bigger Roger fan than me, but I don’t know how easy it is to make a comeback after a knee operation at almost 41 years of age”. 

However, the reigning ATP Finals champion felt that Nadal will have an easier comeback than Roger.

“It’s a tad easier with Rafa than with Roger. He’s five years younger than Roger, so that’s a different topic”. 

Boris Becker continues Zverev’s thoughts on Nadal and Federer

Boris Becker took a cue from Zverev’s thoughts and said, “The two greats of tennis now have to seriously think about how long they can be called players. When it comes to Federer, we all don’t dare to say that he may not play anymore either, especially since it is unrealistic is that after such a long break and at this age you can return to the top of the world”. 

Both Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have made it official regarding their plans to play the 2022 ATP tour. With Nadal testing positive for COVID-19 after his exhibition event in Abu Dhabi, his chances of making it to the Australian Open got slim.

Coming to Federer, he already ruled out his comeback during the first half of next year. Going by this, the Swiss Maestro might look at the grass-court season as an opportunity to be competitive again or aim at the US hard-court season.

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