Heartwarming to see both Rafa and Novak cry over their great rival. Cameras focused a lot on Rafa, and Novak held it together much better, but it's not accurate when people say Novak was ice cold this day. Novak cried too, at 21:16 & 21:33 during the ceremony, and again backstage after the ceremony. The backstage scene was not shown in this TV coverage but was shown in Federer's recent documentary about his retirement.
Forget about the stats of who is the most successful in terms of natural ability and skill and being able to turn Tennis into an art form aswell as a sport Federer is undoubtedly the GOAT.
Tennis is the toughest sports and tennis players are basically solo warriors, so it is not surprising that all the emotions pour out with extreme intensity seen nowhere else.
Every time I see Roger's retirement it breaks me, I cry hard. He is the reason why I love tennis, he was my dad's favorite tennis player who has since passed away, that's why when Roger retired it was like I lost my father a little more. but Federer also gave us several beautiful moments together and I will always be grateful for that❤️
The greatest retirement there is and there will be. To have your greatest rival sitting right beside you, balling his eyes out along with you, that is mad respect.
Federer will not hold the records in tennis, but he will always be remembered as a loved icon who transcended tennis as a great sportsman and human being. As he said, "It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice..." well put.
The GOAT for me because djokovic and nadal came at that time when he already levelled up the game so they coild adopt but he was the creator of modern tennis playing style and aggression
The viva la vida did it for me. I’ve been a sports fan my whole life but I remember the first time I watched a full tennis match was the 2007 Australian Open. It was Fernando Gonzalez vs Tommy Haas. Gonzalez dominated Haas thoroughly and I was thinking to myself, “this guy is something special”. I was a professional poker player who dabbled in sports betting. I remember seeing the odds and this guy named Federer was a 6-1 favorite. I laughed and thought “well he must be pretty good but how is 6-1 possible? How is he going to beat this Gonzalez guy who just made a top 10 player look like a child?”. So I went ahead and put a little bit of money on Gonzalez. Needless to say whatever I lost that day was worth it because for the next 15 years Roger gave me so many memories. In the first couple years my scheduling flexibility allowed me to watch almost all of his matches. After that from about 2009 to 2021 I didn’t miss a single match. Not one. It didn’t matter if it was at 2 AM in Shanghai, 6 AM in Monte Carlo, 9 AM in Rome, noon at Wimbledon, 2 PM in Miami, 5 PM in Indian Wells, 8 PM at the US Open, 10 PM at the Australian Open. I can’t tell you how many birthday parties, how many nights out, how many get togethers with friends, how many events with so many friends I’ve missed to witness Roger play it was all worth it.
