Opinion: The Greatest of All Time Retires from the Cruelest of All Sports
Saying Goodbye to Roger Federer
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With the grace that he has shown on and off the court, the greatest male tennis player of all time has announced his retirement. In an audio statement on Twitter, Roger Federer said he considers himself “one of the most fortunate people on earth,” but that injuries and surgeries had won their battle over his aging 41-year-old body.
His final competitive matches will take place next week in London at the Laver Cup. You may need to be as rich as Federer to afford good tickets to see him play in person.
My “A View from the Center” website is dedicated to unbiased news analysis. But being unbiased about Roger is beyond the realm of my capabilities.
We can discuss, ad nauseam, who deserves to be called the GOAT in men’s tennis. Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, and even Rod Laver, Bjorn Borg, and Pete Sampras have legitimate claims. Experts appear divided among the “Big Three,” with some favoring Federer, while others going for Nadal or Djokovic.
Novak Djokovic of Serbia, Rafael Nadal of Spain, and Roger Federer of Switzerland on stage during the ATP Heritage Celebration at The Waldorf Astoria on August 23, 2013, in New York City. (Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)
I’ll stick with the fans who have made Federer the undisputed king. An ongoing unscientific online Yahoo poll gives Roger the edge over Djokovic as the men’s GOAT. Also, Federer has also long been the men's game's most popular player and its most marketable. He breathed new life into the sport with that personal popularity and the extraordinary beauty of his tennis.
“He made the game look so easy,” Paul Annacone, a top professional player who later became one of Federer’s coaches, told The New York Times. “I’ve always felt he was Picasso with a tennis racket. What I will miss most is the beauty he brought to the game we all love.”
With the greatest man and greatest woman (Serena Williams) stepping away from the sport, we are witnessing the end of tennis’ best era. But this year’s US Open has provided hope for the future, heralding the arrival of an exciting new generation.
Roger’s departure is still a terrible loss to a sport where loss is as defining as it is in life.
I wrote much of the following after Federer’s historic defeat at the hands of Djokovic in a five-set match in the 2019 Wimbledon final (it has been edited and updated):
Tennis is the cruelest of sports. Never more so than on Centre Court at Wimbledon, when two of the greatest men to play the game faced each other in a marathon match that history will record as one of the most dramatic ever. For almost five hours, Roger Federer played the better match, but it was Novak Djokovic who claimed the crucial points that secured him his fifth Wimbledon title.
Tennis is not only cruel, it is lonely. Despite tens of millions of people watching on television and 15,000 sitting steps away, Federer and Djokovic were on their own, no coaches, no teammates, no caddies to advise them, just two players dressed in white and isolated in a sea of grass, fighting a brutal battle to overcome not only their opponent, but also physical and mental fatigue.
Andre Agassi wrote that “Tennis uses the language of life. Advantage, service, fault, break, love - the basic elements of tennis are those of everyday existence, because every match is a life in miniature.”
Even more than life, tennis forces you to deal with failure, because it is a sport that is greatly defined by loss. The greatest of stars, including Serena Williams, usually end their careers with a defeat. Ash Barty and Pete Sampras are among the very few who walked away after wins on the biggest of stages.
At 2019’s Wimbledon, 128 players qualified for the men’s main draw. 127 lost.
Like life and the sea, the championship match ebbed and flowed, from joy to sadness, highs to lows, hope to despair, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, with both players, at different times, seeming to be the certain victor.
Those fortunate to have seats to witness the classic match overwhelmingly rooted for Federer, the most beloved player ever. Author David Foster Wallace wrote one of the best-known essays on tennis, titling it “Roger Federer as Religious Experience.” It wasn’t hyperbole.
Foster Wallace said that one way to explain Roger’s greatness involved “mystery and metaphysics. “The metaphysical explanation,” he wrote, “is that Roger Federer is one of those rare, preternatural athletes who appear to be exempt, at least in part, from certain physical laws.”
Roger Federer of Switzerland plays a backhand in his Wimbledon men's singles fourth round match against Lorenzo Sonego of Italy at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club on July 5, 2021, in London. (Julian Finney/Getty Images)
Federer’s faithful worshiped at the Centre Court altar, the site of his greatest victories, exploding with excitement when their hero seemed on the verge of making history, yet again. But Djokovic broke their hearts when Federer’s serve, one of the most effective of all-time, failed to seal the deal despite championship points at 8-7 in the decisive fifth and final set.
And so it continued, all the way to 12-12, when history stepped in to put an end to the longest Wimbledon final ever played. For the first time ever, a new tournament rule demanded the battle be decided by a tiebreak. And tiebreaks were Djokovic’s friend, needing them to take all his three sets.
In fact, Federer won more games, 3% more points, broke serve more often, and hit more winners than Djokovic.
Still, Roger lost, because tennis is cruel, a sort of electoral college of sports. As in a US election, what matters is where you win those points, and Djokovic managed to do it when they mattered most. Federer made 11 unforced errors in the tiebreaks. Djokovic made none.
Tennis has also been cruel to the three men who could claim to be the greatest of all time, because they have had overlapping careers. Despite that and in further evidence of their greatness, Federer, Djokovic, and Nadal have each managed to win many more major titles than any other player before them.
Only eight have managed the career grand slam, and just four, the "Big Three" and Agassi, have done so on three different surfaces. Tennis fans today have been privileged to see the greatest grass-court player ever in Federer, the greatest clay-court player in Nadal, and possibly the greatest hard-court player in Djokovic.
Can you imagine how many majors each would have won without the others? Of course, we will never know. They may have made each other even greater as they continued to do what few did before them: Conquering major tournaments well into their thirties.
Tennis is especially cruel to Djokovic, who may win everything, but knows he will not win the hearts of tennis fans, as long as Federer and Nadal are on the court with him.
In tennis, failure is the rule, success the exception. It demands speed, strength, agility, and the mind of a chess master, as it exhausts the body and spirit of the lonely gladiators.
Tennis is the cruelest sport, but, for all those reasons, it’s also the greatest.
Farewell and Godspeed, Roger. You were the greatest in the greatest of sports.
Cover photo: Roger Federer of Switzerland celebrates after winning the men's singles fourth round match against Lorenzo Sonego of Italy at the Wimbledon tennis Championship in London on July 5, 2021. (Han Yan/Xinhua/Getty Images)
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