FEDERER TO KEEP 2018 HOPES IN CHECK

ROGER FEDERER did not know what to expect when he touched down in Australia in 2017.

The then 17-times grand slam champion was 35 and coming back from a first surgery-enforced absence to the sport he dominated for more than a decade from his maiden Wimbledon title in 2003.

The six months off, however, appeared to be positively cathartic as he provided arguably the major talking point of the tennis circuit by reviving a career that pundits thought could be over with the injury.

He beat Rafa Nadal in an epic final to win his fifth Australian Open crown and then clinched his eighth on the grass courts of southwest London to