Will Federer Win 21st Grand Slam? This Wimbledon Legend Makes Critical Prediction Amid Coronavirus Break

Doubles legend Todd Woodbridge has suggested that the break due to the coronavirus pandemic has “broken up a great period of tennis” and could make way to a whole new era.

While the French Open and US Open remain in doubt, the All England Club Wednesday declared that the grass-court tournament, for the very first time in history, won’t be a part of tennis’ calendar year due to the ongoing virus crisis.

If Federer chooses to give another shot at the Wimbledon, he will be shy of his 40th birthday next year. More than two years have passed since Federer won a Grand Slam as his 20th major victory remains his last that was the 2018 Australian Open. Before ATP halted its tennis tournaments due to the virus, Federer had announced that he has undergone arthroscopic surgery on his right knee and that he will have to miss the next five events on his schedule—Dubai, Indian Wells, Miami, Bogota and the French Open.

The Australian tennis legend, Woodbridge is not sure if the soon-to-be 39 will be “motivated enough" to start over his tennis routine all over again.

“The question that Roger will have to ask himself is how motivated is he to come back for another year? Or has this actually helped him? But the less match play that you get in this period at that age, it’s so much harder to come back and recover once you start again.

So I really think that post-2020 will be a new era of people trying to create records because it’ll have really have broken up a great period in tennis. It has stopped the potential, I think, of Federer winning one or two more. It becomes very highly unlikely for him,” Woodbridge said in a recent interview.

Woodbridge, who is a 16-time doubles Grand Slam winner, is certain that the coronavirus break will change the course of tennis. He cannot see the Big Three — Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic — continuing to dominate the sport as they have for the past decade-and-a-half.

“Because of the uncertainty, it makes it hard to see how the three can dominate when they come back because of the age of Roger and Rafa. It also puts more pressure on Rafa and it changes all of those storylines that were on the table for 2020. For Novak, it may come at a good time in his career to actually rejuvenate him again, give him another big burst. So if anything, this period helps him the most,” added Woodbridge.