Roger Federer will miss the 2020 French Open after announcing on social media Wednesday that he has undergone knee surgery.
The five-time US Open champion said he hopes to return for the grass-court season, which begins with the MercedesCup in Stuttgart, Germany, in early June, a tournament he won in 2018.
Federer, 38, has played just one ATP-level tournament this year, falling to Novak Djokovic in the Australian Open semifinals.
He also played Rafael Nadal in a charity exhibition match in Cape Town earlier this month, but he did not play any tournaments in the build up to the Australian Open. Federer played five exhibition matches, in Santiago, Chile; Mexico City, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Hangzhou, China, over the off-season.
In a statement shared on Twitter, Federer said: "My right knee has been bothering me for a little while. I hoped it would go away, but after an examination, and discussion with my team, I decided to have arthroscopic surgery in Switzerland yesterday. After the procedure, the doctors confirmed that it was the right thing to have done and are very confident of a full recovery. As a result, I will unfortunately have to miss Dubai, Indian Wells, Bogota, Miami and the French Open. I am grateful for everyone’s support. I can’t wait to be back playing again soon, see you on the grass!"
Dubai has been a regular stop on reigning champion Federer's hard-court calendar; he has won the title a record eight times. He has also had considerable success in Indian Wells, including five titles and four other final appearances, and in Miami, where he won his fourth title in 2019.
The surgery will also force Federer to skip an exhibition in Bogota, Colombia, which had been rescheduled from last November following riots in the South American capital.
Federer has won the French Open just once, in 2009, and has missed the tournament three of the past four years, including in 2017 and 2018, when he decided to skip the entire clay-court season. Last year, Federer returned to Roland Garros for the first time since 2015, reaching the semifinals.
The arthroscopic surgery is the same procedure Federer, who won five consecutive US Open titles from 2004-08, underwent four years ago, albeit on the other knee.
That left knee surgery came just days after he lost to Djokovic in the 2016 Australian Open semifinals and also forced him to miss the French Open, ending a run of 65 consecutive Grand Slam tournaments dating back to 2000.
Federer returned in April 2016 and played Masters 1000 clay-court events in Monte Carlo and Rome before competing in grass-court tune-up events in Stuttgart and Halle. He then competed at Wimbledon, where he lost to Milos Raonic in a five-set semifinal thriller before cutting his season short after just seven tournaments. As a result, he missed the US Open for the first time in 16 years.
The 2016 season also marked the fourth consecutive year without a Grand Slam title for Federer, who returned to win the Australian Open and Wimbledon the following year.
