After an injury setback that kept him out for most of the 2020 season, Roger Federer will finally return to competitive tennis at the 2021 Australian Open, slated to start on January 18, 2021. 

According to the tournament's director and CEO of Tennis Australia Craig Tiley, the Swiss tennis great confirmed he is participating. "Roger this morning just confirmed publicly he'll be here," said Tiley in a video conference on Sunday. 

If Federer shows up at the Melbourne Park by then, it will mark his Grand Slam comeback after a prolonged injury break. 

In February, the 20-time Grand Slam champion had an arthroscopic surgery on his right knee, which led to him skipping the Dubai, Indian Wells, Bogota, Miami and the French Open. 

In June, he made a follow-up decision, announcing he would be missing the rest of the season due to a setback during rehabilitation and an additional arthroscopic procedure that followed. 

"I plan to take the necessary time to be 100 percent ready to play at my highest level," said Federer in a statement on Twitter back then. 

As revealed by his coach Severin Luthi in a September's interview, Federer has been committed to making a return at Grand Slam tournaments next year and there are plans to begin to take to the court in early October. 

The last tour-level tournament Federer played was the Australian Open in January this year, where he lost to Novak Djokovic in straight sets in the semifinals. 

The 2020 Australian Open was the only Grand Slam tournament of the season that was not affected by the coronavirus pandemic; however, going forward, the event has to gear up with all necessary safety measures against the COVID-19.

"Bubbles" in cities across Australia will be established to accommodate players arriving early, providing them with a safe environment leading up to the Grand Slam.

"(Players) will have two weeks of quarantine that they will do in cities around Australia, and for those two weeks, we're creating a bubble from the hotel to the courts in a training environment," said the tournament's director Craig Tiley. "By then, we expect the border to be completely open, and we can move from city to city and then come down to Melbourne for the Australian Open for the last two weeks of January."

According to Tiley, the tournament will allow up to 50 percent of the public for games. This is significant progress in comparison with this year's U.S. Open, which was played without fans, and the ongoing French Open allows only a handful of spectators.

It will also pose a big challenge for tournament organizers as the state of Victoria, of which Melbourne is the capital, accounts for 90 percent of Australia's 894 COVID-19-related deaths, and is witnessing a recent rise in the number of cases. 

(Cover image: Roger Federer of Switzerland plays a backhand in his semi-final match against Novak Djokovic of Serbia on day eleven of the 2020 Australian Open at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia, January 30, 2020. /VCG)