Roger Federer – “I Would Like To Teach Tennis at Rafa Nadal Academy”

The 38-year-old, Roger Federer revealed his future plans once he sets aside his tennis racquets. The Swiss legend would definitely be engaged in giving tennis lessons to the upcoming players and mentioned his interests to cooperate with his friend and foe, Rafael Nadal and teach tennis at his academy in Majorca, Spain. 

“I would like to teach young people tennis. And I’d like to do it with the Rafa Nadal Academy,” Roger Federer told SportWeek (La Gazzetta) when asked about his post-retirement plans. In 2017, during the inauguration of Rafa Nadal Academy, Federer was the guest of honor.

“If my children want to play tennis, I will definitely send them here,” World Number three, Federer said during the inaugural ceremony of Rafa Nadal Academy.

During IPTL 2016, Nadal shared about his tennis venture with Federer. “I think this great for both of us to be good friends and has a big venture now, the Rafa Nadal Academy. He told me all about it at IPTL, we played each other there in India. I was on the plane with him and I asked him, tell me something about the academy that you are building in Mallorca. He told me all about it,” Federer said during Laver Cup 2017.

“If it was me building an academy I would wish Rafa to call me and say ‘do you need any help?’ And as I don’t have an academy, I said, I will call him up and tell me, Rafa, if you need my help, any exhibition match, if you want me to promote your academy, if you want me to come and open it with you, let me know and he invited me over,” he continued.

“We had it, big celebrations for his academy and he was very happy and I think, it made our friendship even deeper and which is great,” Roger Federer concluded.

Earlier that year, Federer gave a deep insight into their camaraderie. “Rafa and I really show that the biggest rivals can be also friends. I think it’s going to lead to something also down the road. I think I would like to add, that the matches are always not going to be too friendly,” Federer said.

“Honestly, when I will look back at my career, I will think a lot about Rafa, that I had a lot of moments with him. Maybe we can do some great things in the future, we can play exhibition matches when we are older or create something fun in the business,” Federer added.

Federer unveiled his tennis calendar for 2020, he has opted to play on the clay surface once again and Roland Garros is on his list. Also the quadrennial event of sports, Olympics is there on his agenda. In 2016, Federer missed the Olympics Games due to his knee injury and also stayed out from the courts of Roland Garros owing to his knee issues.

“I will play the French Open and I probably won’t play much before that. I’ll probably play the French, Halle, Wimbledon, the Olympics, maybe Cincinnati and then the US Open,” he revealed his 2020 calendar.

On the ATP circuit, Roger Federer will be next playing in his hometown event, Swiss Indoors Basel 2019. The Swiss won his last title in Halle Open 2019 and later missed his ninth Wimbledon title by a point.

During the North American summer, Roger Federer failed to reach the semifinals in both the events where he participated. He was a round of 16 upset in at Cincinnati Masters 2019 and was knocked out in the quarterfinals of US Open 2019 by Grigor Dimitrov. Later, in Shanghai Masters 2019, Alexander Zverev pulled him up from entering the semifinals in Shanghai.