LONDON, 21 Sep: Roger Federer is known for his elegant style of play, for his longevity, for his 20 Grand Slam titles \u2014 and for occasional tears in his most emotional post-match moments, whether after victory or defeat.
\nThere was none of that sort of sadness Wednesday, just smiles and some chuckles at his own jokes, as Federer appeared at a news conference to discuss his retirement from professional tennis at age 41 after a series of knee operations. He will close his career with a doubles match at the Laver Cup on Friday \u2014 perhaps alongside longtime rival Rafael Nadal.
\nFederer said he is now at peace with the decision to walk away, which comes a few weeks after Serena Williams played what is expected to be her last match at the U.S. Open, and he wants this farewell to be a celebration.
\n\u201cI really don\u2019t want it to be a funeral,\u201d Federer said. \u201cI want it to be really happy and powerful and party mode.\u201d
\nWearing a blue blazer with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a white polo shirt, Federer took questions for about a half-hour at the arena that will host the team competition founded by his management company.
\n\u201cI\u2019m nervous going in, because I haven\u2019t played in so long,\u201d he said. \u201cI hope I can be somewhat competitive.\u201d
\nFederer, who announced last week via social media that he would be retiring after the Laver Cup, said it took him a bit to get used to the idea of stepping away from competition.
\nBut it was something he understood he needed to do after running into setbacks in July during his rehabilitation from what was his third surgery on his right knee in about 1 1\/2 years.
\n\u201cYou try to go to the next level in training, and I could feel it was getting difficult. … Then, I guess, I was also getting more tired, because you have to put more effort into it to be able to sort of believe that it was going to turn around. You start getting too pessimistic. Then I also got a scan back, which wasn\u2019t what I wanted it to be,\u201d Federer explained. \u201cAt some point, you sit down and go, \u2018OK, we are at an intersection here, at a crossroad, and you have to take a turn. Which way is it?\u2019 I was not willing to go into the direction of: \u2018Let\u2019s risk it all.\u2019 I\u2019m not ready for that. I always said that was never my goal.\u201d
\nAnd the hardest part came when he knew he needed to stop.
\n\u201cYou\u2019re sad,\u201d Federer said, \u201cin the very moment when you realize, \u2018OK, this is the end.\u2019\u201d
\nThe last procedure on his knee came shortly after a quarterfinal loss to Hubert Hurkacz at Wimbledon in July 2021, which will go into the books as the last singles match of a superlative career that began in the 1990s and included 103 tournament titles, a Davis Cup championship for Switzerland, Olympic medals and hundreds of weeks at No. 1 in the ATP rankings.
\nIn his online farewell message last week, Federer referred to retirement as a \u201cbittersweet decision.\u201d
\nHe was asked Wednesday what aspect was most bitter and what was most sweet.
\n\u201cThe bitterness: You always want to play forever,\u201d he said. \u201cI love being out on court. I love playing against the guys. I love traveling. … It was all perfect. I love my career from every angle.\u201d
\nAnd then he added: \u201cThe sweet part was that I know everybody has to do it at one point; everybody has to leave the game. It\u2019s been a great, great journey. For that, I\u2019m really grateful.\u201d
\nHe will play doubles for Team Europe against Team World on Day 1 of the event, then will give way to 2021 Wimbledon runner-up Matteo Berrettini for singles over the weekend. That plan was run by the ATP and both team captains, John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg, Federer said.
\nAs for his doubles partner for the last hurrah? Federer would not say definitively \u2014 he said that\u2019s up to Borg \u2014 but the not-so-hidden secret is that it is expected to be Nadal, who holds the men\u2019s record of 22 major championships.
\nBack in February, when word emerged that Federer would be in London this week, he said Nadal messaged him last year suggesting they play doubles together again. They teamed up to win a doubles match during the first Laver Cup in 2017.
\n\u201cIf we\u2019re able to possibly share the court one more time as a doubles pairing,\u201d Nadal said in February, \u201cthen this would be a truly special experience for us both at this stage in our careers.\u201d
\nWhile other contemporaries of Federer and stars of the sport are on Team Europe, such as 21-time Slam champ Novak Djokovic and three-time major winner Andy Murray, the Federer vs. Nadal matchup will go down in history as among the greatest rivalries in tennis or any other sport.
\nThey played each other 40 times in all (Nadal won 26), with 14 Grand Slam matchups (Nadal won 10). Nadal came out on top in their classic 2008 Wimble-don final, considered by some the greatest match in history; Federer won their last showdown, in the 2019 semifinals at the All England Club. (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONDON, 21 Sep: Roger Federer is known for his elegant style of play, for his longevity, for his 20 Grand Slam titles \u2014 and for occasional tears in his most emotional post-match moments, whether after victory or defeat. There was none of that sort of sadness Wednesday, just smiles and some chuckles at his own […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-201050","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201050\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}