September 24th, 2022 was a sad day for me, not just for me, but also for many others around the world, as it marked the end of an era.
I would never have imagined that I would be able to identify to such an extent with someone I have never been able to meet or know personally. I was able to follow this person only on screens, and only once live for two hours or so, as long as the match he participated in lasted. It was about five years ago when I was sitting and cheering for him far behind in the back rows of a huge sports hall in Shanghai, so he seemed like a little ant on the court, so far away I was. This person is, in my opinion, the greatest sporting figure in the history of all sports, not just a sport he mastered to perfection. This is tennis player – Roger Federer.
I will not describe his success story here, as many already know it. His exceptional talent, the way he played and behaved on and off the tennis court, all the achievements, the contribution to sport he was playing, his popularity and the fan base around the world are immeasurable and unmatchable. This man changed the world of tennis and made it on of the most popular sports on the planet. He had a special ability to attract people to start watching and playing tennis, because of him, especially those who didn’t know much about tennis before. I’m already one of them.
As a child, I didn’t follow tennis much, not as passionately as I did basketball I was in love with. I was a huge fan and supporter of basketball player Michael Jordan. For days and days I watched HVS tapes of him and his games, and later tried to imitate him outside on a basketball court just a few tens of meters from our home. I had his posters all over my walls. My dad likes tennis. Now decades ago, he went to play it occasionally with his friends in a club with 2 or 4 outdoor clay tennis courts by the Sava River, where, I remember, drinks and meals for the guests and players were served from an old camping trailer. Dad, despite the high costs of tennis lessons that would not be easy for him to cover, wanted me to enroll in a children’s tennis club called EMBA, a kilometer away from home. Unfortunately, I was afraid of the challenge at that time and stayed only to practice basketball and karate. He asked me a few times more, if I wanted to give it a shot, and then he gave up eventually. We, kids, still watched tennis enough to know the main tennis stars back then. My best friend and I, especially when big tournaments like Wimbledon were on TV, tried to imitate the players on TV a few times. We looked for old wooden rackets from the closet or basement and went outdoor, to playgrounds or parking lots, to hit the tennis ball. He was Jim Curier and I was Pete Sampras. We didn’t have a net, so we improvised with other obstacles. The basketball court under my window, where I lived, was often taken, so we played on a small concrete platform inside the kindergarten that we visited. We climbed the fence and played until the neighbor started complaining from the block next door. That’s all I had to do with tennis – very little. But one day, in the early 20s, my interest in tennis changed completely.
To have role models in the period of your childhood is something totally normal, but to have an idol in the twenties, thirties is not something very common, perhaps even a little strange, I think. And I’m one of those weirdos, as I consider Roger Federer as my idol and someone I really admired for the past 15 years already. I don’t know where the reason for this is. One free, lazy afternoon after a day at the university, I watched a random tennis match on TV. I remember two players running around on a red hard court trying to win a point. Between them I noticed a player with long hair tied in a ponytail, whose name I couldn’t even pronounce right back then. He is from Switzerland. His style of play immediately seemed very special to me, so light, graceful, elegant and effortless. He was finishing points very quickly with an aggressive and varied way of playing, and between points as he served and prepared for the next point, he never let his opponent wait for him. All this made him very attractive to watch and completely different from his opponent(s). It was young Roger Federer. Since then, I began to pay more attention to him and began to follow his career. That’s how it started…
Reason for being a Federer fan is completely different than being a Michael Jordan fan back then. Jordan was a great leader and player, the best one. All of us back then admired his moves and we still do, but somehow you can’t identify with him as you can with Federer, who has some special charisma, but at the same time remains simple, modest and with his feet firmly on the ground. Federer’s never been seen with a cigar in his mouth after big wins like Jordan. In my opinion, this is something athletes shouldn’t do. Of course they can, but behind closed doors, away from the eyes of the public, especially children. That’s what made Federer different from the others, not only when he was playing tennis, but also out off the court. He’s known as a family and charitable man, calm, polite, a gentleman without any affairs (so far).
With every match, new win, trophy, record, I was becoming more and more passionate fan of him. As far as I could, I followed and watched all his tennis matches. Sometimes, due to time differences, I woke up in the middle of the night to watch tennis. I quietly snuck into the kitchen where we have a small TV, turned the TV volume down, so I wouldn’t wake up the parents I was living with at the time, and watch. If there was no TV broadcast, I chose the second option and followed his matches via live stream, where only the result is shown. Many times the matches with him were so tense, that I changed the TV program, especially on break or match points, because I was simply too nervous to watch. After a few minutes, I moved the TV program back and hoped that the result is in his favor. It was the same with the live stream, where I only refreshed the site after a certain time, if I didn’t want to know the result right away.
I really got into his matches – cheering, screaming, giving advices in front of the TV, as if he could hear me, jumping and kicking at every important point he won or lost. I didn’t just follow his tennis matches. I follow all news, articles and interviews related to him. I know his charity foundation and I pay a lot of attention to his clothing collection, of which I have few caps, a shirt and jacket. This has been the case for the last 15 years and is likely to continue.
My family and friends, of course, knew I was a big Federer fan. They sometimes teased me when he lost – especially my dad, who’s a Novak Djokovic fan – but they comforted me more. Of course, there were moments when he lost a tennis match. At that time, depending how important the match was, it saddened me a bit, more when he had the match already in his hands. There were quite a few matches like this. As was the match, already in his mature years, when in the Wimbledon final he had 2 consecutive match points on his serve against Djokovic to win this biggest tournament in the world again, but later on, he lost. That was hard to accept. He also later admitted that this was the hardest defeat of his career. A great tennis player as he was, with his positive mindset, he, in his post-match interview after loses, always reassured fans around the world to be better next time.
Injuries have been very lenient to him throughout his 24-year career. But aging and long years of playing and training took a toll of his body. Three years ago, he had knee surgery, followed by two more later. He’s only played a few times since. He tried and did everything he could, to come back this fall, but the knee injury was recurring, as he says. We, fans, all believed that he would return and continue to show his unique tennis skills for a year or two more, but on September 15th, he shocked the world with a heartbreaking speech that at the age of 41 and after more than 1,500 matches played, of which he did not retire even once, he is saying goodbye. I cried listening to that speech. In the speech, he announced his last official match as a professional tennis player will be a week later in doubles with his biggest rival and friend, Rafael Nadal. Watching the emotional ceremony that followed after the farewell match, I cried again. Do I believe it or not, his tennis career is over. Icon, legend, greatest athlete of all time, idol, role model and inspiration to millions, waved goodbye to professional tennis and sport for good. This marked the end of an era and the story of a great athlete, which will go down in history forever.
Thanks for all the memories, Roger. Forever your fan!
