Roger Federer’s career officially ended at the 2022 Laver Cup, having played his last match alongside his eternal rival Rafael Nadal. The 20-time Grand Slam champion would have liked to end his career in a very different way, but a serious knee injury tormented him until forcing him to retire.
The former world number 1 underwent several surgeries between 2020 and 2021, trying to play for a few months in 2021 with poor results. After the elimination in the quarter-finals at Wimbledon, the Swiss Maestro decided to operate on his knee again in the hope of a final stint the following year.
Shortly after the end of the 2022 US Open, news came that the Laver Cup in London would be the last ATP event in King Roger’s career. The Swiss champion held most of the men’s tour records for a long time, before his eternal rivals Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic surpassed him.
Despite losing almost all his records, the Swiss continues to be the most beloved tennis player around the world. The former world number 1 continues to attend some tournaments and was present at Wimbledon a week ago. Last month, Amazon Prime released a documentary about the last 12 days of Maestro’s career. Federer is enjoying life with his family and – when the knee gets better – he will also arrange some exhibition matches with his old rivals.
Lionel Roux on the 2017 Australian Open final
Fans around the world surely remember the epic final of the 2017 Australian Open between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. During a recent interview with KPSports, former No.38 Lionel Roux recalled that day: “I remember the first game I commented on was Federer on the central at the Australian Open, and in fact it was really impressive because we were sitting in a booth next to the photographers on the court. They had the opportunity to change cabins after three or four days. We decided to stay, because in fact, where we were commenting, we saw the movements of Federer and Nadal that I was commenting too, and it was so impressive that I took a hell of a walk. One had the impression that Federer played almost on air cushion, he moved as if flying. Nadal was a little bit more ripped off, but it was pretty nice.”
Nadal always had an advantage in the rivalry with Federer, which turned into a psychological problem for the Swiss. King Roger reversed the trend in the last years of his career, beating his eternal rival several times and winning their last match at Wimbledon in 2019. During a recent interview, the Swiss Maestro talked about Nadal: “I tried not to lose, but I did lose. Sometimes, big. For me, one of the biggest was finals at Wimbledon in 2008. Me versus Nadal.
In 2008, I was going for a record six consecutive titles, I was playing for history. I’m not going to walk you through the match point by point, if I did we would be here for hours, almost five hours to be exact. It took me until the third set to remember, ‘Hey buddy, you’re the five-time defending champion, and you’re on grass, by the way! You know how to do this.’ But it came too late and Rafa won, and it was well deserved.
Some defeats hurt more than others. I knew I would never get a shot at six in a row, I lost Wimbledon, I lost my number one ranking and suddenly people said: ‘He had a great run, is this the changing of the guard?’ But I knew what I had to do – keep working and keep competing. In tennis, perfection is impossible.”
King Roger loves his fans
Roger also spoke about his documentary: “These are, truly, the last twelve days of my career. Many things happened in those days. The documentary shows the suffering, vulnerability and beauty that exists in an athlete’s career. Those images, at first, were intended to be private, for my family, but we saw that they were so beautiful that we couldn’t keep them just for ourselves. That’s why I’m proud to share them with my fans.
At first, I thought I was going to suffer a lot when I announced my retirement. That everything was going to be sad, but in the end everything was a party. I didn’t imagine everything would be this beautiful.” Federer, Nadal and Djokovic have made the history of tennis and sport in general. All three have had very long careers and have improved each other breaking all records. The Big 3 has been a reference model for all the current players.