Both Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic suffered injuries in the past two years that kept them out of the game for an extended period of time.
Federer injured his left knee in the fifth set against Milos Raonic in the Wimbledon 2016 semifinals – a match in which he subsequently lost. This match turned out to be his last match of the 2016 season as he wanted to give more time to recover from that injury.
Similarly, during Wimbledon 2017, Djokovic retired halfway in the match in his quarterfinal against Tomas Berdych citing an elbow injury, which ultimately kept him out from the game for the rest of the season.
As both players have now come back and are fully fit, it is interesting to compare their respective comeback results as they are very different.
Federer 2017:
During Federer’s comeback in January 2017 in Australia, not much was expected of him. Coming into the Australian Open as the 17th seed, he defied expectations and won his eighteenth Grand Slam title, and most importantly against his longtime nemesis Rafael Nadal in the final.
As Federer said it himself:”I never expected to win – maybe fourth round or quarters would have been a success for me.”
Then, he carried this momentum in the big tournaments by sweeping the “Sunshine Double” (winning Indian Wells and Miami in the same year).
From the Australian Open 2017 to the end of Wimbledon 2017, he had a 26-2 win-loss record. However, it is important to note that in the two matches he did lose (against Evgeny Donskoy and Tommy Haas), the Swiss did have match points in both of them.
Djokovic 2018:
Djokovic’s comeback is not as much of a fairytale compared to his Swiss rival. He started off his season at the Australian Open by reaching the 4th round before losing to “NextGen” champion Hyeon Chung. This was followed by suffering back-to-back first-round exits (against Taro Daniel and Benoit Paire) at Indian Wells and Miami.
His clay court campaign began at the Monte Carlo Masters and reached the third round before losing to Dominic Thiem. This was followed by a first-round defeat at the Barcelona Open by Martin Klizan and a second-round exit at Madrid by Kyle Edmund.
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He reached the Rome Masters semifinals before losing to Rafael Nadal. Djokovic showed some signs he was back to his best during the Rome Masters, ae carried this momentum into the French Open and reached the quarterfinals before a surprise defeat to Marco Cecchinato.
But, with his long-time coach Marian Vajda back in his team, slowly but surely, Djokovic will be back to his best once again.
In summary:
It is without a doubt that the Swiss has had the better comeback results between the two. Federer’s success was instant when he came back on tour in 2017 by capturing a Grand Slam title after a near five-year drought without a Slam. Djokovic’s was not as straightforward but is now showing us some glimmers of the player he once was – but needs to show it in all his matches, not just some.
However, as Federer opted to fully skip the clay season in 2017, it can be argued that Federer would not have had the success he had on grass that year if he did play on clay. Nevertheless, the Swiss dominated the first four months of the hard courts, whereas the Serb did not.
With the grass court swing starting, it will be interesting to see how Djokovic responds to his French Open upset and most importantly- what will be his performance like on the grass?
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