At the last, as Roger Federer fought in vain to retain his composure, time seemed to melt away. For all his elegant mastery of the game, for all the sleek sophistication of his mien and comportment, Federer has always taken an almost childlike delight in the simple fact of being a professional tennis player. Now, in the final moments of his career, we were transported back to the beginning.
To Wimbledon in 2003, when the Swiss was overwhelmed in similar fashion, tearfully addressing the Centre Court after the first of his 20 grand slam triumphs. To Melbourne in 2009, when he was unable to disguise his devastation after losing a third straight major final to Rafael Nadal. To Paris five months later, when he wept joyfully on completing the career grand slam at Roland Garros.
Victory and defeat. Triumph and disaster. Kipling’s two great impostors treated just the same. If Federer’s past told us anything, it was that any attempt to keep his emotions in check would prove fruitless – and that we, inevitably, would be taken with him. It is part of what has made him so easily relatable for all these years: the knowledge that, for all his ethereal talent, he is, at heart, as human as the rest of us.
The whimpering enquiry the Swiss made of Jim Courier as he began the emotional courtside interview that followed the final match of his career – “We’ll get through this somehow, will we? Right?” – cast the mind back to Centre Court 19 years ago, when Federer displayed similar vulnerability before Sue Barker.
As he reflected on his journey since – from “a boy playing tennis, then a junior champion, then a world champion, then a sporting icon,” as Courier eloquently put it – Federer seemed almost unchanged from his 21-year-old self. Even his words were similar. “This is great,” Federer told Barker as he dissolved into tears almost two decades ago; “It’s been great, it’s been so much fun,” he told Courier on Friday night, adding that he had never dreamed he would scale such heights.
“It was never supposed to be that way. I was just happy to play tennis and spend time with my friends, really. It’s been a perfect journey, I would do it all over again.”
Even Rafael Nadal, a man not readily given to public displays of sentiment, was reduced to emotional rubble. The sight of the two great champions sitting at courtside afterwards, hand in hand and bawling their eyeballs out – surely Ellie Goulding’s vocal performance wasn’t that bad? – instantly became one of the game’s most poignant and unforgettable images.
In years to come, few will remember that Nadal had just partnered Federer to a 4-6, 7-6 (7-2), 11-9 doubles defeat against Jack Sock and Frances Tiafoe at the Laver Cup. For once, the outcome was almost immaterial, as Federer later acknowledged.
“The match in itself, sure, is special, but it’s really everything that happened after, because I wasn’t aware who was going to come to sing, what was going to happen, where I should go, what was expected of me, or how long it was going to go [on].
“Then I guess looking around, and seeing how everybody got emotional, obviously it’s even better – or even worse, I’m not sure what to say. That’s what I will remember, is the faces I saw emotional. Rafa was one of them.”
It was indicative of the intensity of the occasion that even Nadal, the champion of a men’s record 22 majors, struggled to cast aside the enormity of it all. For 18 years, ever since they first locked horns in Miami in 2004, the Spaniard has vied with Federer on the game’s grandest stages; now, at the end, the pair were united not only as doubles partners but also by the sense of a shared loss, one that will be felt across the sport.
“The first couple of serves for me were super difficult,” said Nadal. “I was not able to do the normal movement. I started with a double fault. I was shaking a little bit. [It has] been a difficult day to handle every single thing, and at the end everything became super emotional.
“For me, it [has been] a huge honour to be a part of this amazing moment in the history of our sport, and at the same time a lot of years sharing a lot of things together.
“When Roger leaves the tour, an important part of my life is leaving too, because of all the moments that he has been next [to me] or in front me in important moments of my life.”
Federer said he had worried for weeks beforehand about addressing the crowd afterwards, and his gratitude to Courier was as plain as his appreciation for his team-mates, among whom were old foes Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray.
“This is the part I was extremely worried about, taking the microphone,” said Federer. “All I told Tony [Godsick, his long-time agent] was I want to be able to have an evening where I do not have to take the mic.
“I know how impossible I am on the mic when I am emotional, because I had it many times before. But I was able to remind myself always on the court again how wonderful this is. This is not the end-end, you know, life goes on. I’m healthy, I’m happy, everything’s great, and this is just a moment in time.”
It was a moment that few will forget.