The Swiss Roger Federer, current world number 2, announced his participation in the Rotterdam tournament, which begins on Monday, and that could allow him to return to world number 1 and seize the throne from Spanish Rafael Nadal.
“I remember playing for the first time in Rotterdam in 1999, it was one of the first tournaments where I had the opportunity to play at the highest level. It feels good to participate in the celebrations of this 45th edition, ”the recent Australian Open champion, which marked his 20th Grand Slam title, wrote on his website.
Unused to taking part in second-row tournaments in recent years – Rotterdam is an ATP 500 class event, the penultimate in importance – Federer accepted the invitation, probably thinking about the challenge of returning to No. 1.
Federer is just 155 points behind Nadal in the ATP rankings and would surpass the Spaniard in the event of reaching the semi-finals in the Netherlands. Nadal will not play a tournament next week.
If he manages to get back to number 1, for the first time since October 2012, at 36 years old he will become the oldest player in history to do so, ahead of the American Andre Agassi (33 years old). It will also increase the time record at the top of the ranking, which it currently holds at 302 weeks. AFP
Federer will participate in Rotterdam in search of number 1
