Roger Federer has ended his superlative professional tennis career with a loss in doubles alongside longtime rival Rafael Nadal at the Laver Cup.
LONDON — This day, this match, had to come for Roger Federer, and for tennis, just as it inevitably must for every athlete in every sport.
“It’s been a wonderful day. I told the guys I’m happy, I’m not sad,” Federer said. “I enjoyed tying my shoes one more time. Everything was the last time.”that the three-day team event, which his management company founded, would be his final event before retirement, then made clear the doubles outing would be the last match.
They came ready to roar for him, some with Swiss flags, some with homemade signs , and they made themselves heard with a wall of sound when Federer delivered a forehand volley winner on the match’s second point. Similar reactions arrived merely at the chair umpire’s announcement before the third game of “Roger Federer to serve” and again when he closed that game with a 117-mph service winner.
An emotional Roger Federer of Team Europe sits alongside his playing partner Rafael Nadal after their Laver Cup doubles match against Team World's Jack Sock and Frances Tiafoe on Friday at the O2 arena in London.Federer and Nadal were able to laugh after a bit of confusion over which should go for a ball on a point they lost. After Nadal somehow flicked one back-to-the-net shot around the post, only for it to land barely wide, Tiafoe, a U.S.
Perhaps they could have provided everyone with one final installment of a head-to-head matchup as memorable as any in the long history of their sport — or, indeed, any other.
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