Roger Federer has used his first appearance at the Australian Open in six years to respond to coaching rumours, stating ‘never say never’, but that he is ‘definitely out’ for the foreseeable future.
Despite being retired, the Swiss legend has been the talk of the tennis world over the last 48 hours after making various appearances around the Australian Open grounds, including a public tiebreak against Casper Ruud.
Federer hadn’t made the journey down under since 2020, two years prior to his eventual retirement.
In addition to his on-court action, Federer has also been asked about the current state of the men’s tennis field, including world No 1 Carlos Alcaraz.
The Spaniard is one of the favourites for the title in Australia, but will contest his first tournament without long-time coach Juan Carlos Ferrero.
The split was announced just ahead of the new season, something which happened relatively spontaneously over multiple contractual disagreements.
The 20-time Grand Slam champion was even asked whether he would be interested in filling the vacancy.
“I’m out, I’m definitely out. Maybe I could give him some advice on the periphery but everybody knows I’m too busy with my children and my life at the minute,” responded Federer whilst speaking to TNT Sports.
“I think he can get [the career Grand Slam] with a coach or without a coach, he is that good obviously.
“A good coach definitely will be helping. I don’t know if he has already done press here and talked about his Ferrero situation a little bit, which is obviously going to be a little bit uncomfortable but it’s something you just have to do as a pro.
“But it is definitely going to be very important to him to find the right person in his corner and to be able to get the career Grand Slam at such a young age is incredible to be honest.
“So let’s see if he can do it.
“[Jannik] Sinner is obviously the other big, big favourite and I believe Novak [Djokovic] will have a good shot as well.”
As Federer mentioned, Alcaraz would become the youngest male singles player to have won all four Grand Slams – if he were to win the 2026 or 2027 Australian Open.
Rafael Nadal currently holds the record at 24 years, three months, and ten days after being victorious at the 2010 US Open.
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However, whilst the Swiss ruled himself out of coaching Alcaraz anytime soon, he did leave the door open for a similar coaching role many years into the future.
“Never say never. [Stefan] Edberg said the same. I’m very busy, I’ve got four children. No chance for the moment,” said Federer at a special press conference in Melbourne.
The comments also come after the six-time Melbourne champion heaped more praise on the 22-year-old Spaniard, going so far as to make comparisons between himself and Alcaraz.
“At Wimbledon, when Grigor was playing against Jannik and I was sitting there, that made it easy to think how it could’ve been because Grigor plays very similar to how I played,” analysed Federer.
“I think it was one of the first times I thought how would it have been to play Jannik. I didn’t feel that way watching Jannik and Novak (in Shanghai), I was just watching great tennis because they both played very different to how I play.
“Carlos, when I see him, I feel like there’s more similarities in terms of what we would do.
“In terms of when we would hit a drop shot, when we would come to the net, how offensive, how passive do we decide to play, because I think we like to play on our terms.
“So I put myself more into Carlos’s mindset and skin.”
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