Federer not thinking of retirement

Roger Federer will not be thinking about retiring despite struggling this season, according to legend Rod Laver.

Federer is battling to qualify for the season-ending ATP World Tour Finals at London’s O2, and his hopes were boosted as he survived a scare to reach the quarter-finals of the Swiss Indoors Basel.

And despite suffering early-round loss at Wimbledon and the US Open and sliding in the world rankings, Laver believes the record 17-time grand slam champion will not call it a day.

“I don’t foresee him saying he’s going to hang his rackets up because he’s had a bad year,” the Australian said. “I think he’s going to look at this next January – and you might be surprised when you look at the champion of next year [at the Australian Open].

“It might be Roger. He’s playing good tennis [but] sometimes it’s a matter of winning the right points. You don’t have to win them all, just the right ones. He seemed like he was getting into the right position of winning the right points, but not winning them.”

Laver, the only player to achieve the calendar Grand Slam twice, insists Federer’s problems are down to his form rather than a decline in his game.

“It’s a tough time. He’s 32 and not playing his best tennis by any means,” Laver said. “It’s sometimes hard to analyse someone of that ability. But once in a while it happened to me where for no reason … you’re just flat. What’s happened? What is it that made you play your best tennis?

“Maybe that’s going through a little bit of Roger’s [mind] because I saw him play at Wimbledon. The first match he played he was just perfect, great. And in the second, he loses a match which he could probably win with his eyes closed.”