Federer Comeback in Trouble?

[jimlosaltos]

Rumor apparently started with this Tags article that Fed's knee is doing well enough to let him practice with the intensity he needs.

tagesanzeiger

https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/das-grosse-raetselraten-um-roger-federer-271602762466

Might miss the Laver Cup. Weeks after that for Basel.

LC rules say each player has to enter both singles and doubles, so the doubles-only escape value isn't available.

That would be sad.

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[arturohernandez]

Sorry is or is not doing well enough. I am skeptical that he will be able to come back. An old interview with Pierre Paganini said that the first comeback was much easier because he was off for a very short time. So he could simply rebuild his musculature.

This lay off has been much longer and a while back Paganini said that this would be MUCH harder. He needed to rebuild his muscle base almost entirely. It's hard enough maintaining your form at 41. Trying to rebuild it sounds impossible.

[jimlosaltos]

Sorry is or is not doing well enough. I am skeptical that he will be able to come back. An old interview with Pierre Paganini said that the first comeback was much easier because he was off for a very short time. So he could simply rebuild his musculature.

This lay off has been much longer and a while back Paganini said that this would be MUCH harder. He needed to rebuild his muscle base almost entirely. It's hard enough maintaining your form at 41. Trying to rebuild it sounds impossible.

Yup. Fed's miracle 2017 has set our expectations too high, I'm afraid.

Also, I still haven't seen what the fourth knee surgery actually was. My speculation is that both he and Wawrinka had regenerative surgery. Approach these days has shifted from micro-fracture (which ended many an athlete's career) to transplanting a slice of leg bone with a kernel of cartilage to regrown the removed, damaged cartilage. That's serious surgery -- "Transplant" !

It took Stan perhaps 3 years to get competitive again and that wasn't at his level prior to the surgery.

On the other hand a younger Raheem Mostert, one of the fastest NFL players {23 MPH peak speed with the ball}, missed a year with that surgery and is back this season, although moving from my 49ers to the Miami Dolphins.

Again, this is speculative -- but there are only so many options when one gets to the third surgery on a knee {4th incl both knees} that apparently doesn't involve ligaments. And after 3 surgeries, one can assume Fed had zero meniscus left.

[stotty]

The problem is you pay for things later down the line. I have played tennis all my life (to a reasonable standard in my youth) and coached for nearly 40 years. I have no cartilage left in my left knee, two shot rotator cuffs, a dodgy pelvis, and neck that jars inexplicably...just for moments but very painful. These guys are going to wish they retired at the age Borg did. I bet Borg has very few problems even today.

[stroke]

I had a total knee replacement about 1.5 years ago, and I did not even play to a reasonable standard ha

[jimlosaltos]

My sympathies on your injuries. Ran into a stranger wearing a neck brace {from a biking accident, I believe it was} at a tennis tournament this summer. Waiting for a change over, he was commiserating with my SO over her knee replacement. But this guy was smiling and said about her college and adult soccer as well as tennis "You had 26 years of those sports, right?"

My SO's knee replacement went great.

Not sure I could manage that attitude while wearing a neck brace, though.

[stroke]

Mine went very well also. I am back running as good as most other 64 year olds ha. My knee feels really about as good as my "good" one. I am certainly glad I went ahead and did it when I did. I had basically no cartridge left, and the cortisone and gel shots were no longer any help at all.

[stotty]

Mine went very well also. I am back running as good as most other 64 year olds ha. My knee feels really about as good as my "good" one. I am certainly glad I went ahead and did it when I did. I had basically no cartridge left, and the cortisone and gel shots were no longer any help at all.

I am heading that way but trying to stave it off as long as I can. I stay around 7lbs under my natural fighting weight to keep weight off the knee and ease the pain. I need to do further strengthening but it's so bloody time consuming doing them! There is a school of thought over here that insist replacement isn't necessary if a person is prepared to stay lean and do a lot of strengthening exercises. I'll let you know on that one...

[arturohernandez]

Hi Everyone, Well I am in my mid-50's. Have a torn meniscus in both knees. The one on the right is not painful. But the one on the left was very painful until I started wearing a brace that helps to take pressure off of the outer knee where it is torn. So far I feel much better and can play without pain. I most likely will start to run in waist high pool again. This and strengthening exercises help.

However, the best solution would be to play on clay.

Do the same injuries happen for those who play on clay? My guess is that there joints are probably much better preserved.

Anyone play on clay?

[doctorhl]

2 or more sets of clay equals 1 set of hard in regards to the total amount of jarring in feet, knees and hips. All my clay friends have less wear and tear. When I became 50, I wondered why clay senior tournaments outnumbered hard court in many states in the U.S. Twenty years later....now I know!

[jimlosaltos]

Hi Everyone, Well I am in my mid-50's. Have a torn meniscus in both knees. The one on the right is not painful. But the one on the left was very painful until I started wearing a brace that helps to take pressure off of the outer knee where it is torn. So far I feel much better and can play without pain. I most likely will start to run in waist high pool again. This and strengthening exercises help.

However, the best solution would be to play on clay.

Do the same injuries happen for those who play on clay? My guess is that there joints are probably much better preserved.

Anyone play on clay?

That's an interesting question. It's commonly assumed that clay is easier on the legs, because it is softer. But from what I've been able to find, nobody really knows.

There have been a few studies of the pros, but unlike sudden trauma, such as a broken leg, it's near impossible to tell when a soft tissue injury "occurred". Fed's knee gave out when he was bathing one of his twins, but that certainly wasn't when it happened.

Fed's trainer Pierre Paganini, said that clay is harder on the joints because when you slide the pressure hits in an irregular series of jolts.

At the pro tournament level another issue is that play continues during rain on clay and grass -- and both have seen slips yielding joint injuries.

One of Fed's knee injuries either occurred or was brought to a head, when he was playing in the rain at Rome and slipped on the wet line tape, poorly nailed into the clay. Fed had asked the chair to suspend play, but the chair refused. In hindsight, Fed's career might have lasted longer if he had walked off the Rome court.

[doctorhl]

That's an interesting question. It's commonly assumed that clay is easier on the legs, because it is softer. But from what I've been able to find, nobody really knows.

There have been a few studies of the pros, but unlike sudden trauma, such as a broken leg, it's near impossible to tell when a soft tissue injury "occurred". Fed's knee gave out when he was bathing one of his twins, but that certainly wasn't when it happened.

Fed's trainer Pierre Paganini, said that clay is harder on the joints because when you slide the pressure hits in an irregular series of jolts.

At the pro tournament level another issue is that play continues during rain on clay and grass -- and both have seen slips yielding joint injuries.

One of Fed's knee injuries either occurred or was brought to a head, when he was playing in the rain at Rome and slipped on the wet line tape, poorly nailed into the clay. Fed had asked the chair to suspend play, but the chair refused. In hindsight, Fed's career might have lasted longer if he had walked off the Rome court.

Clay , no doubt causes severe injuries due to sliding and slippage . As for wear and tear joint osteoarthritis and tendinitiis,/tendonesis, I just mentioned anecdotally that these accumulative injuries seem to be more common among hard court players than soft, but there is no research to back that up.

[stotty]

I am a decent case study. My formative junior years, and up until the age of thirty, were played on red shale, which is similar to clay. I never had a single problem on that surface, but of course I was young back then. Since then I have played on Astro Turf, and more latterly, on hard courts. Astro Turf is easy on the legs. Hard courts are what really do the damage in my view. There is no give on a hard court. One brakes and then slides on Astro and clay courts whereas on hard courts you brake and come to an abrupt halt...that's jarring. Today, it's hard courts that kill my knees whereas on Astro I have far less pain.

God knows what Novak's knees are gonna be like at 60. I imagine not good.

[stroke]

Hi Everyone, Well I am in my mid-50's. Have a torn meniscus in both knees. The one on the right is not painful. But the one on the left was very painful until I started wearing a brace that helps to take pressure off of the outer knee where it is torn. So far I feel much better and can play without pain. I most likely will start to run in waist high pool again. This and strengthening exercises help.

However, the best solution would be to play on clay.

Do the same injuries happen for those who play on clay? My guess is that there joints are probably much better preserved.

Anyone play on clay?

To me, once your knee is kinda gone, it is gone. I had days where I could not even take a mile walk because of my knee pain. And it had gotten so bad, I could not even fully straighten it out anymore. All that is over post total knee replacement. I am much better.

[jschaff]

So you are existing with two knees both of which have torn menisci? Really. Why no surgery yet? I am a physician and to be considering a knee replacement before surgically dealing with this is not reasonable. Usually the meniscus surgery is quick, less than an hour, and I have gone to lunch after two of them. I have been cleared to "advance as tolerated" after 7 weeks. Physical therapy started one week post op. I am hitting on the court for the last three weeks. Not aggressively, but each time is better than the previous one.

Yes you can wait and hope, but meniscus do not heal up usually. Poor blood supply. Let me know if you would like any more discussion.