Tennis news - Roland Garros to be Roger Federer's only clay-court tournament in 2020

Reports previously suggested that the world number three would opt to play in the Madrid tournament but these rumours have been quashed by his agent Tony Godsick.

"As his schedule states, he plans on playing just Roland Garros," Godsick told Reuters.

Federer has been selective with his clay court schedule since 2017 where skipped the entire clay court season, including Roland Garros, two years in a row before returning and playing in Paris, Madrid and Rome last year.

The 38-year-old Swiss reached the quarter finals of both tournaments last year before reaching the semi-final of Roland Garros where he was beaten by Rafael Nadal.

The Madrid Open starts on 3 May before the Italian Open commences a week later, with the all-important French Open starting on the 24 May.

Federer's only French Open title came back in 2009 but will be looking to add to his unprecedented 21 Grand Slam titles to steer off world number one and two Novak Djokovic and Nadal, who are both looking to replace him as the most male tennis players of all time.

With Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Dominic Thiem all streets ahead of Federer, this is the only logical thing for the 38-year-old to do. Indian Wells and Miami have both been fruitful for him in recent years and, ahead of Wimbledon and the Olympics, there is little sense in playing plenty of matches on clay.

In 2018, when he repeated his 2017 move of skipping the whole clay season, he did not look as sharp as he could be when he got to SW19.

Having an extended break before the busiest part of the season makes perfect sense - he will go to Paris knowing that little is expected of him but he can remain in a competitive scenario ahead of his two biggest goals of the season: Wimbledon and the Olympics.