No. 4 of '22: Roger Federer didn't win his farewell match, but a sendoff for the ages eclipsed the final scoreboard

“I’m happy, I’m not sad,” Roger Federer said after playing his last professional match, at Laver Cup in September. “It does feel like a celebration to me.” 

It was kind of hard to tell at that moment. Federer’s words were upbeat, but as he said them his eyes were starting to overflow. He cried for much of his post-match interview. He cried with his doubles partner, Rafael Nadal. He cried with his wife, his kids, his mom, his dad, his teammates, his coach, his agent, his agent’s wife, and a dozen other people who were there to send him off at London’s O2 Arena.

Could you have imagined it, or wanted it, any other way with Federer? This was how it all began for him two decades ago. In 2003, on the other side of the same city, he won the first of his 20 Grand Slam titles at Wimbledon, and then burst into tears. Between that show of emotion, which was unusual in tennis at the time, and his masterful display of all-court shot-making, which was equally unusual, Federer made permanent converts of tennis fans everywhere. Over the next 20 years, he made millions of new ones with that same combination of graceful play and unguarded emotion.

But Federer really was happy with his final match, and he was right to be. He had spent the better part of three years trying and mostly failing to get his surgically-repaired knees back into playing condition. He had become a star without a sendoff, a legend without an ending. The same was true of Serena Williams, until her electrifying three-night run at the US Open. On this evening, Federer joined her with an equally fitting final hurrah. During his career, he made tennis better in a variety of ways; virtually all of them were represented at the O2.

First, he was accompanied by his fellow Big 4 members—Nadal, Novak Djokovic, and Andy Murray—on Team Europe. Without Federer’s example, would they have achieved everything they achieved? We’ll never know, but the fact is that no male player before Federer won with the relentless consistency, on all surfaces, from week to week, Slam to Slam, year to year, that he did. Then, suddenly, two other players, Nadal and Djokovic, did the same thing.

Even more fitting was the presence of Nadal on the same side of the net with him. Roger and Rafa changed men’s tennis with their games and their achievements, but also with their friendship. That also wasn’t the norm among top rivals before Federer. The norm was McEnroe vs. Connors, Becker vs. Lendl, Sampras vs. Agassi; to say that none of them were buddies would be something of an understatement. But Federer and Nadal were. They understood there was room at the top for both of them, and tennis was the ultimate winner. They dueled in some the greatest matches of all time, and then sat down and cried next to each other when it was all over at the O2.

Then there’s the Laver Cup itself. It’s one of the few, wholly new, wholly successful events to insert itself into the tennis calendar…ever. And only Federer could have made it happen. Only Federer could have brought the game’s best male players together during what would normally have been their post-US Open downtime; they did it for him. Federer could have been merely a great player, the way most great tennis players have been. But he wanted to do more. He was the president of the ATP Player Council for six years; he helped negotiate more prize money at the majors; he was the star power behind Laver Cup.

You might say the only thing missing from Federer’s final night was a victory; this is, after all, a player who finished with 1,251 career singles wins, second on the all-time ATP list. The result of his last doubles match was the least-important element of the evening, of course, but the contest was entertaining and surprisingly hard fought. I wondered going in whether Sock and Tiafoe might bow to the wishes of the world and let up just enough to allow Roger a last victory lap. But the Americans went the other way. They battled tooth and nail, and even drilled the two legends with the ball a few times—fair play, especially in doubles.

Still, there were vintage moments. Sharp volleys, forehand winners, that flowing backhand, and one last brilliant forehand flick late in the match-tiebreak. Federer couldn’t leave without showing us how he played the game one more time.

“I’m happy I made it through,” he said. He was relieved just to escape physically unscathed. The fans in the O2 tried their best to will him across the finish line. Which was, of course, another element from Federer’s career that had never been seen before in tennis: His universal popularity. After a certain point, he never played a match where he wasn’t the crowd favorite.

New York, Paris, London, Melbourne: In each of those tennis capitals, they thought of him as one of their own. Now, finally, we can say that Federer belongs to history. That should make us as happy, and as sad, as it did him. Federer brought a new beauty, a new emotional honesty, to the court. He remade the game, but there will never be anyone like him.