"He needs to be mentally ready to retire" says Tomas Berdych on Roger Federer

Roger Federer is determined to come back and play tennis once more and while Berdych does not doubt his desire and will to do it he also believes that Federer needs to be ready to retire. Speaking about the Swiss Ace whom he battled many times in his career during the Champions Tennis event in London he said:

"He (Federer) maybe wants to come back on the court and maybe make the call and whether he’s going to play his last tournament, for his huge fan base around the world, but if he doesn’t it’s fine. He has nothing to prove so it’s down to him how he feels and how he wants to do it at the end of the day. He’s going to try to prepare himself as best as possible and he’s experienced enough to know that it won’t happen at one tournament."

Berdych understands how hard it can be to walk away from the game but for Federer, it's even tougher. He is coming back from an injury and surgery so it's hard to judge what his level will be. Berdych believes that he will need to play at least one match to know whether he can still play or not but he needs to be ready to accept it might just be that one match:

“But, without matches and being 40 years old, it’ll be very difficult to judge your level. If you are in the middle of your career and you get injured for six months and you do a good preparation basically you know what’s going to happen when you start to play. But I think in this situation he needs to be mentally ready to know that it could be just one match, even if he’s done everything possible. It’s not easy and then the young guys will be there and won’t give him any favors.”