Roger Federer says he "didn't know" if he wanted to play Roland Garros again after 2019
Ahead of his long-awaited claycourt return in Geneva, Roger Federer spoke about his last appearance on the red dirt - which came at the 2019 French Open.
A couple of months ago, Federer returned to the ATP tour following a one-year absence (due to a knee injury) in Doha. He has since decided to play only two claycourt tournaments this year - Geneva and Roland Garros.
The 39-year-old's last appearance on clay was at Roland Garros 2019, where he lost in the semifinals to Rafael Nadal. Speaking about that experience in his press conference on Monday, Federer claimed he played a "good" tournament but that the semifinal was "dead" because of bad weather conditions.
"It was a good tournament. I played well," Federer said. "This match against Rafa was of course completely dead with the wind. I saw everything against him, but it was finally quite funny in these conditions. There are some exchanges that you normally cannot play at all."
Rafael Nadal defeated Roger Federer 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 in the match, which was marred by stormy winds throughout. The Spaniard then went on to lift the trophy in the final against Dominic Thiem, but Federer on his part was left wondering whether he would ever play at Roland Garros again.
"Afterwards, I was not at all disappointed," the Swiss said. "Sometimes, I even laughed internally on certain points that we played. I was happy to have played in Paris at the time. At that time, I didn't know if I even wanted to replay Roland Garros in my career."
Roger Federer has never beaten Rafael Nadal at Roland Garros
Roger Federer has a wide array of achievements to his name. However, that doesn't include defeating Rafael Nadal on his favourite surface - the clay at Roland Garros.
Federer has met Nadal six times at Roland Garros, and he took the Spaniard to four sets in their first three meetings - the semifinals in 2005, and the final in 2006 and 2007. But the Swiss was thrashed 6-1, 6-3, 6-0 in the 2008 final, following which he also came up short against Nadal at Wimbledon that same year.
The pair met one more time (aside from their 2019 semifinal) at Roland Garros, in the 2011 final. That was a closely fought four-set affair which Rafae; Nadal won 7-5, 7-6(3), 5-7, 6-1.
Roger Federer has decided to play Roland Garros this year, but by his own admission that is more of a way to prepare for Wimbledon. Still in the top 10, it is possible that the Swiss finds himself on Rafael Nadal's side of the draw and meets him again in the quarterfinals this year.