Roger Federer has said that he highly values the longevity records of the great players of the past and enjoys playing tennis even if not winning all the time. So it would not surprise me to see him play till age
40-45 (2021-2026), barring severe injury or family issues, similar to
Gonzales,
Connors, and
Rosewall.
.
Federer's already achieved his main goals for this year and returned to world #1 to set another record. Now he has been #1 for a total of over 300 weeks thanks to his close friend Stanford.
.
But Roger's
long range plan is to outlast the current best players so he can win slams at the expense of next generation stars such as
Tomic, Young, Harrison, Dimitrov, etc.
It's not too difficult to see Roger winning many more majors once
Mr. Djokovic and Mr. Murray are out of the way in 5 or 6 years due to normal decline or retirement.
Sr. Nadal will unfortunately have departed to greener pastures sooner. Go to 10:00 of the video to see Nadal's preparation for hitting a nice tee shot.
I also predict that there will be an effort supported by Federer to get the Australian Open moved indoors due to extreme heat and
the hole in the Antarctic ozone layer causing increased rates of melanoma and other UV skin damage in Australia. The AO is building 8 new indoor courts and a roof over Margaret Court Arena in addition to the existing roofed Rod Laver and Hisense which
should be ready by 2015.
Considering all of these factors, expect 3 or more AO titles from Federer in the controlled indoor environment. He should also be able to get 3 or 4 Wimbledons due to the rainy London weather, 2 or 3 Roland Garros titles (I expect the French will change it to blue clay when Rafa retires) and a US Open or two, once Murray and Djokovic hang up their shoes.
Rod Laver won the Grand Slam in 1969 as a professional at age 30. So Federer should win at least one between ages 36-40.
Not that it means as much, but he'll also have an excellent chance to pass Connor's 109 titles record. We're seeing that he can still win 6-8 titles/year while Djokovic and Murray are at their peak. Playing 9-14 years longer means he will only need to average somewhere between 2 and 4 titles/year to achieve that.
He is likely to finally retire once his name has been associated with almost all men's singles tennis records and he has named an heir-apparent to his throne.
Belgian teen sensation
David Goffin is the leading candidate...
He has all the necessary requirements - talent, style of play, racquet company, European, and has shown proper deference to Federer, which will be transformed to a proper aura of superiority (some mistake this quality as arrogance) once he has ascended. He has a similar size and body type to John McEnroe and only needs to work on beefing up his body from a slight 150 pounds (68 kilos) to a stronger 165 pounds (75 kilos).
Respectfully,
masterclass