World of sport reacts to Roger Federer’s retirement
Updated
We’ve always known Roger Federer was a supremely talented tennis player. He was a Grand Slam champion, a World No. 1, the second-ever Swiss national champion and the 2008 Olympic men’s doubles gold medallist. But now he is leaving tennis far behind, as he announced his retirement from the game at the end of this week.
In an emotional press conference on Friday afternoon, Federer revealed that for the past two years, he had been suffering from an ongoing medical problem, and he was forced to make a difficult decision.
Federer played just two more tournaments after the US Open, his last tournament, with Stefan Edberg. Both men won.
The Swiss star became the first tennis player to retire since Jimmy Connors in 1997.
The news was met with a mix of expressions across the board.
Roger Federer is a legend. His retirement was a brave decision
“I have to say that, when I won my first Grand Slam tournament at my sixth attempt, I thought: ‘You know this is not just going to happen every day,'” Federer told a packed Swiss press conference on Friday.
“When I won the Olympic doubles gold medal, I thought, ‘What next? Where will it all go from here? What next, my love?'”
“And that is exactly what happened. I had a great career but I never wanted to spend the rest of my life in tennis no more. That is why I made this decision,” he said.
He made the announcement in a matter of seconds, leaving stunned silence in the room.
In a way, it’s like Roger Federer announcing he had left the priesthood, or going from a marriage of 30 years to a different one. He just took the time to explain his decision to the media.
The sport of tennis has always been a special one for him, though. Federer played on the same court with one of the best tennis players of all time, in his time with Bjorn Borg at Basel.
And Federer played doubles with the man who beat him in the Wimbledon final in 2007, Rafael Nadal. (He and Nadal eventually lost the final to Roger Federer’s brother. Federer beat him both times, though. The first time, in the semifinals,