Roger Federer bows out of Laver Cup in tennis retirement alongside a teary Nadal

Although it has been full-on, the volume absolutely on max, it has been no surprise really, such has been Federer’s extraordinary body of work and its effect on those who appreciate the beauty of his game. One lady was sitting in the stands when the band of her ring suddenly broke, sprinkling Diamonds on the floor below her. I kid you not – but it works as a metaphor for the retiring idol, a man who has spent a lifetime sprinkling Stardust on tennis courts around the globe.

Federer has certainly been given a Regal send-off here – and that is not meant, in any way, to refer to the royal events at the start of the week. Yet the great and the good of the game, and many from without, have been paying Homage to Federer.

Bear Grylls was here to do the coin flip – that’s the same Bear Grylls who is friends with Federer and has taken him on one of his Expeditions into the Swiss Alps. Oh yes, the same Bear Grylls who whipped out of his rucksack a mini table-tennis table and proceeded to lose a game of ping pong to him on a snowy mountain top.

One personal favorite was a video post from Pete Sampras. “Hey Roger, Pistol here,” he starts, as if Federer might need some help working out who he was. And to refer to himself as “Pistol”? You just hope that Federer posts his reply on a public forum. “Hey Pete, it’s Goat here.”

Really, it’s just all been, genuinely, very lovely. You may look for the cracks, the stage management or some kind of forced call to prayer, but you won’t find it. That’s been the beauty of this; the Laver Cup is a somewhat fabricated sports event, the veneration of Federer has been utterly genuine.

Only briefly has Federer himself stopped to touch upon what might have been. He has declared himself happy with his decision to retire, but “not satisfied”. They always wanted more.

He has reflected on the decision to have surgery on his right knee and pondered what might have been. The surgery didn’t follow the plan, it didn’t return him to full fitness. So was he right to have done it?

“Maybe I shouldn’t have, in hindsight,” he reflected. “But then if I think maybe what could have happened is I would have played and then it would have exploded at some moment. Which would have been like way worse. Who knows?

“So that’s why I believe, ‘OK, whatever happened, it happened.’ I was 100 per cent convinced it was the right thing to do. I did the surgery, which was successful, and then six weeks later, I have to do another one because something’s wrong again. I mean this stuff you just can’t predict. There’s always a risk when you open something. That’s why I always said it’s the beginning of the end once you’ve had surgery.”

And here we had the end of the end.

The dramatic finale certainly took time coming. There is a lot of ceremonial glitz involved in this event. Before the evening session started, each player on each team was given a personal introduction and then a Solo walk on to the court with the crowd applauding their every step.

The reaction for Federer – just to see him walk on – was something in itself. The crowd rose to its feet as one. Federer, who has worn this look all his career – that he doesn’t quite know where to put himself when everyone is being so nice to him – certainly didn’t know where to put himself now.

Then we had the Andy Murray match. This was intended as an hors d’oeuvre to the Federer doubles match straight afterwards. Unfortunately, neither Murray nor Alex de Minaur, the Aussie at the opposite end, seemed to have read the briefing note.

They then settled into a Duel of exhausting high quality. Murray was broken in his first service game, then broke back in the sixth. A brilliant, even-sided first set looked set to be heading to a tie-break when in the 12th Murray took the second of his two chances to break and close it out.

That first set, alone, took 80 minutes. Federer and his doubles partner, Rafa Nadal, had long since slipped away to the practice court. If they practiced all that time, they would have been exhausted.

Thus it was that, after the first set, Federer returned to courtside to join his teammates in the supporting cast, now wearing his bandana, now ready to go, ready to play the last match and to end the long goodbye.

-The Times

Owen SlotColumnist, The Times