Roger Federer recalls when people thought he may be done

Twenty-time Grand Slam winner Roger Federer recalled his 2013 season where he did not win any title and dealt with a back injury. "You lose once, twice in the first round of a tournament and you say: Is it now? I did not get tired of it but I just found this quick news on the social media, in the press, people debated about, I found that a little bit extreme but Hey, it's just part of the business. You can't just have people saying, Everything is great, everything is wonderful, he is playing a game of great tennis. I worked very hard, I got my back in shape, 2013 was a tough year but I knew that if I felt good again, my back would come back, my confidence would come back, my mind would be focusing on tennis and not on my back, I could concentrate again on tactics, scheduling and what I wanted to achieve. That's when my game would come back faster and I was happy with how my team worked together, how confident and supportive my team was my racket change", said Federer. The World No. 5 also recalled his 1999 Rotterdam appearance where he lost to Yevgeny Kafelnikov in the quarterfinals. "The weeks leading into Rotterdam may have shown that it was really, really possible because I got a wild card into Marseille as well, into the main draw, beat Carlos Moya who is No. 1 seed and No. 4 in the world and a few weeks later he would become world No. 1. I had made the quarters there too, I had also made the semis of a Challenger, I felt I could play against the big players especially beating someone like Moya in an ATP event. You feel like if you can beat him you can beat so many other players as well. I had a lot of confidence and indoors it was a great ground for me," concluded Federer.

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