Roger Federer puts an end to two decades of elegance on the tennis courts

Just in the week that a 19-year-old, Carlos Alcaraz, has reached world number 1, the first of the three musketeers who have raised tennis to heights never seen before folds. Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic have been quick to congratulate the Swiss, with whom they have maintained a strong rivalry always marked by elegance and respect. For many years, Federer was an unbeatable rival. Then they were able to overcome him, but without it affecting the aura of the player from Basel, surely the most elegant tennis player who has ever set foot on a court. Federer retires with 103 titles won, 20 of them from the Grand Slam. He has won 1,251 games and lost 275, with economic earnings of $130.5 million.

Federer is the son of a Swiss man and a South African woman who met in a pharmaceutical company in Johannesburg. The two had played tennis, but the father just for fun. Mother did point out manners, but she didn’t think she could dedicate herself to it. The two decided that to start a family Switzerland was a better place than South Africa, and they left for Basel, the city of Robert, the father, in the 1970s. And that’s where Roger was born, who practiced a lot of sports, such as badminton, handball and football: he is a big fan of Basel. In fact, I went to a school where two older brothers, the Yakin, made it to the Swiss national team, making soccer the sport everyone played at school. So was he, but the talk of the house was tennis, because the mother, Lynnette, had signed up for a club to win titles in the veteran category. It was at this club, the Old Boys of Basel, that Federer was chosen as the ball collector at the Basel tournament. Up close, he analyzed the strokes of the great champions who passed through town, and then imitated them. At the age of 14, he made his debut on the circuit in 1996, but began to attract attention when he won the junior title at Wimbledon in 1998. In those years, however, he could not find peace of mind. He was a nervous player, with great potential, but who lost his focus and was too affected by criticism. Federer was one of the first players to work with psychologists to get stronger and overcome the problems he had suffered when he was sent to an academy in southern Switzerland, where French-speaking children laughed at his accent: he comes from from Switzerland where German is spoken.

Two decades of glory

The first triumph came in 2001, when he won the first title of his career at the tournament in Milan, at the age of 19, defeating Frenchman Julien Boutter. Then it was clear to everyone that Federer was a special player, as he had shown in the previous months by eliminating top players like Carles Moyà, who had just won Roland Garros. In 2001, everything changed with the first victories, such as that of the Hopman Cup (mixed tournament with players from the same country) forming a pair with Martina Hingis, and that of Milan, in a tournament that no longer exists, because retired in 2005. It was the first title in a 19-year streak of winning at least one tournament, from 2001 to 2019. Federer went on to win 24 consecutive titles from October 2003 to October 2005, a historic streak that began in Vienna when he prevailed in his 17th final. Federer was able, at the time, to lead the ATP ranking for 310 weeks, 237 of which were consecutive. In 2003, on the grass of Wimbledon, he won the first of the Grand Slams, and began a reign that has lasted almost two decades.

“Playing against him was very complicated. He wasn’t the fastest, or the one with the best serve… but he didn’t have weak points. Mentally he was very strong and managed to detect your flaws – explains David Ferrer -. And he’s a guy very normal off the track,” he adds. Married to former Slovakian player Mirka Vavrinec, whom he always credits for helping him be more focused, Federer set up the Team8 agency in 2013 with his agent, Tony Godsick. The agency has brought in other players and organized the Rod Laver Cup, where for the last time, the most stylish player of all time will dazzle on the court.

“Of all the gifts that tennis has given me, I stay with the people I have met. I am turning to you to announce something – explains Federer at the beginning of the farewell video -. I have suffered injuries in these last few years and my body has sent me clear that I can’t go on. It’s a very hard decision and I will miss this sport a lot, but I celebrate giving everything I’ve had and that tennis has given me so much more than that I gave him.” At the end of “a wonderful adventure”, as the Swiss said, he will say goodbye after the last three years which have been “a challenge in the form of injuries and operations”. After 24 years in the elite, the Swiss left having won 103 titles, 20 of which were Grand Slams, and an Olympic gold at the Beijing Games.