Having retired from tennis as a player, Swiss maestro Roger Federer is now in the second phase of his career. The 20-time Grand Slam winner hung up his boots following one last appearance at the Laver Cup in September.

Many of Federer’s compatriots, including Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, both of who had featured on behalf of Team Europe in his farewell match at the Laver Cup, have already begun to prepare for the next chapters of their careers.

The Spaniard and the Serbian have found great success running their own tennis academies but 

Federer is not too interested in doing the same.

While speaking to the media during a recent fan event in Tokyo, Federer explained that it is “hard” for him to run an academy given that it could clash with the operations and plans of the Swiss Tennis Federation — an organization he considers himself incredibly “close” to. 

In fact, he even went on to call himself a product of the Swiss federation and has also always acknowledged their impact on his career.

“I am like the product of Swiss tennis, of a federation. So I think I will always have that with me. That’s why it’s hard for me to create my own academy because I feel like that would go maybe potentially against the federation, who I am too close to,” Federer said.

Now that he has officially retired from the sport, there have been plenty of talks regarding what Federer will do next. The obvious, next logical step is for him to get into coaching and there has been plenty of discussion in the Tennis community regarding the same.

However, when asked about the possibility of him getting into question, the Swiss maestro was rather negative. He mentioned that for now, he only intends to focus on day clinics for children and nothing major. With that being said, however, he did not rule out coaching in the future.

“I think it was the next-gen development program here at Uniqlo. I will be doing more mentorship and more inspirational, you know, kids’ day clinics in my mind for the moment. Coaching? I mean, never say never,” he said.