At once the best tennis player of all time and beatable, he was the one everyone wanted to see on court
Well, it had to happen. But then, in a sense, it already had. We hadn’t seen Roger Federer play since he was beaten easily by Hubert Hurkacz at Wimbledon in 2021. After that he announced that he was having surgery on his troublesome knee and taking the rest of the season off. This was followed by further surgery and a longer period of rehab. So, whereas Serena Williams went out in a blaze of announced glory at this year’s US Open, Roger’s retirement has taken the form of perpetual postponement.
His unsurpassable haul of 20 Grand Slams was surpassed, first by Rafael Nadal and then by Novak Djokovic, but still the official word was that he would be back. Was so much invested in him that the belief of a return had to be kept alive, even when it came to seem increasingly unlikely? The eschatological and the financial had become hard to disentangle. Still, we wanted a chance to show our love at Wimbledon next year, something ceremonial instead of this slow and invisible fade.
The Last Days of Roger Federer by Geoff Dyer is published by Canongate