Roger Federer: Is that it? – Sports

That’s it? With him and Wimbledon?

Questions like these always sound like blasphemy with someone like Roger Federer, who could have taken note of swan songs six, seven, eight years ago if he had been interested in them. But he never has. Luckily. What would perhaps have escaped the greatest player in his sport if he had followed the prophecies of doom prematurely? But now, here and now, on this evening of July 7th, 2021, it was time to ask those questions that athletes fear and that no one can run away from. Not even tennis professionals with 20 Grand Slam titles, with endless records, with millions of fans.

Federer is a respectable 39 years old, he will be 40 on August 8th, he had to cope with two knee operations last year, it was really a tough fight back on the pitch, on the especially sacred grass at the All England Club, where he fell down eight times in deep jubilation, while even the often reserved crowd of guests in the Royal Box rose for him each time. Months of rehab, starts at smaller tournaments, to get to grips with yourself, to find out about your fitness and your momentum. In Paris, at the French Open, he no longer appeared in the round of 16, Wimbledon, Wimbledon, that was his goal. He was his own experiment on the way there. He’s never been through anything like this before, he was to say himself later. He liked this phase, he even found it exciting.

“In the end he was the much better player,” said Federer of Hubert Hurkacz

Then Wimbledon, really, he had managed to return, that was a success in itself. A rumble victory at the beginning, a few quick afterwards. Federer slowly became almost the one everyone praised. You could feel the industry’s sigh of relief. And then: Quarter-finals, everything literally crashed together, first and foremost the hope that the good guy, the hero in this piece, will swing himself up one last time to usurp the Grail. Instead? It was as if Federer was standing in the rain, his collar turned up, in front of the legendary pub Dog & Fox on the hill in Wimbledon Village, playing a ballad on the saxophone. Yes, the blues phase of his career has definitely begun for him.

Because that wasn’t a normal defeat that Federer suffered in this quarter-finals, his 58th at Grand Slam level. 3: 6, 6: 7 (4) and, no typographical error: 0: 6. He made a total of 31 slight mistakes. The 24-year-old Pole Hubert Hurkacz, like almost everyone an admirer of Roger, impressively suppressed his respect for Federer and played furiously. Until the end. He was more precise in the strokes, more agile, more consistent, which meant: Federer was inferior in all these areas – which he recognized: “In the end he was the much better player.” And so this question inevitably had to come up.

That’s it? Of course, Federer was prepared. “I don’t know,” he said without a long pause. “I really do not know it.”

These two sentences alone were enough to feel the turning point. The debate about how long Federer, one of the greatest personalities beyond his sport, will continue to play actively is no longer a question that the public, the media, the supporters lead. He is now leading it himself, as he announced several times, in the video press conference on this fateful Wednesday in London. He wanted to let everything sink in, then talk to his team, the coaches Severin Lüthi and Ivan Lubjicic, and make an announcement “sooner rather than later”, “for me and everyone, for my family and the team”. And added: “Of course I would love to play here again, but at my age you never know what will happen.”

In those moments when he ruled out an early end to his career and somehow let it echo between the lines, Federer seemed above all: human. There sat a man, born in Basel, married, four children, wealthy and adored, he was visibly, audibly wrestling with what was the right step for him now. For the moment he only knew: he would make the decision that “makes me feel most comfortable”.

Open detailed view

Tennis history has shown enough times that so many know how to hit hard, how to play on clay and get one Tweener, through the legs. But how to end a career properly is a chapter for which there is no plan, no script. Boris Becker needed two attempts to say goodbye, Stefan Edberg dutifully announced one last tournament early enough, Pete Sampras was gone overnight. It shouldn’t come out like that at Federer, “the goal is to play, of course,” he said. But he has to clarify two aspects for himself. On the one hand, Hurkacz revealed playful deficits: “A lot is missing in my game,” admitted Federer, “which was maybe very easy and very normal for me 10, 15, 20 years ago.” On the other hand, he needs a new tracking book. In his rehab phase, he had pulled himself up to the thought of Wimbledon, “You can’t think of the whole mountain you want to climb at once”.

“It’s a fun feeling to be honest”

But what can the goal now be? The fact that he is still pondering about participating in the Olympics shows that Tokyo cannot be the main motivation. At many points in his lectures, Federer sounded very positive and upright, he will soon be optimistic again, he promised, and show “my old self”. But in fact, he also exuded relief. “It’s a fun feeling, to be honest,” he said, “you try everything and when it’s over all you want to sleep is because you’re so mentally drained.”

Perhaps, just one thought, Roger Federer fears the ominous day X far less than everyone thinks.