{"id":33529,"date":"2021-03-07T08:30:21","date_gmt":"2021-03-07T13:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=33529"},"modified":"2021-03-06T23:11:41","modified_gmt":"2021-03-07T04:11:41","slug":"roger-federer-return-qatar-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2021\/03\/07\/roger-federer-return-qatar-open\/","title":{"rendered":"Roger Federer Set to Return at Qatar Open This Week"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The last time Roger Federer smacked a tennis ball feels like a distant memory. But the wait is now over (or it will be). Federer teased his legion of fans and tennis fraternity with sneak picture of himself on a practice court a couple of weeks ago. He is set to mark his return to competitive tennis at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open in Doha next week.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The countdown to Doha begins <br \/>\ud83e\uddbe\ud83d\ude03\ud83d\udc4d<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/1weektogo?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#1weektogo<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/EDAgvqp2Md\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/EDAgvqp2Md<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Roger Federer (@rogerfederer) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rogerfederer\/status\/1365375741261668359?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">February 26, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Roger Federer returns to tennis for the first time in a year<\/h3>\n<p>The Swiss legend last featured at the 2020 <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/australian-open\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Australian Open<\/a>, where he reached the semifinals, losing to the eventual winner Novak Djokovic.<\/p>\n<p>Since then, Federer had undergone multiple knee surgeries and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2020\/03\/31\/tennis-break-is-a-big-break-for-roger-federer\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">missed the remainder of last season<\/a>. He had initially planned to return at the 2021 Australian Open, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2020\/12\/27\/roger-federer-out-of-the-australian-open\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">but delayed his comeback<\/a>. Even with a rescheduled date for the first Grand Slam of the year, Federer did not participate at this year&#8217;s Australian Open. Rumors circulated on social media that the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2021\/01\/17\/australian-open-lockdown-fair\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">COVID-19 protocols<\/a> instilled by the Victoria government were the major factor. Federer would not have been able to travel with his entire entourage to Melbourne in that case.<\/p>\n<p>In his latest post on his social media pages, the 20-time Grand Slam champion was excited and hopeful as he gears up to fly to the Middle East where he will play in Doha and Dubai respectively.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I am about to take off to Doha. Its been a year since my last travel to any event,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rogerfederer\/status\/1367899885278814216\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Federer said in short video on Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I am very excited and I want to thank all the people who made this possible,&#8221; he added. &#8220;It&#8217;s been a long and hard road. I have been practicing very well and I am really pumped up.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Last practice before \u2708\ufe0f <br \/>Feeling \ud83d\udcaa\ud83c\udffc and ready to go! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/kkvQTFvWE4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/kkvQTFvWE4<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Roger Federer (@rogerfederer) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rogerfederer\/status\/1367822756176420865?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 5, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The ATP 250 tournament in Doha will take place between from March 8th-13th. The draw for the 28-player singles was released on Saturday, 6th March at around 3pm local time. Qualifying matches will be played across the weekend. Federer has a first-round bye and will face either Dan Evans or Jeremy Chardy in the second round.<\/p>\n<p>Roger Federer is the most decorated player in the 28-year history of the Qatar Open, having won the event three times (2005, 2006, and 2011). He also has a 26-3 record at the tournament (best of any player). Federer will be joined World No.4 Dominic Thiem, defending champion Andrey Rublev, and 2019 winner Roberto Bautista Agut in a star-studded lineup.<\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo from Getty.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The last time Roger Federer smacked a tennis ball feels like a distant memory. But the wait is now over (or it will be). Federer teased his legion of fans and tennis fraternity with sneak picture of himself on a practice court a couple of weeks ago. He is set to mark his return to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2341,"featured_media":30443,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2,9,11519],"tags":[511,2333,10088,208,447,114],"class_list":["post-33529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atp","category-featured","category-news","category-tennis","tag-andrey-rublev","tag-atp-doha","tag-atp-qatar-open","tag-dominic-thiem","tag-roberto-bautista-agut","tag-roger-federer"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2341"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}