World of sport reacts to Roger Federer’s retirement
The world of sport has been left devastated after the Swiss great Roger Federer announced his retirement from Wimbledon tennis.
Federer stunned the world by giving a defiant press conference after being handed the news that he planned to hang up his racket for good, ending a storied career that included 13 Wimbledon titles.
It was a remarkable performance from Federer who made his comeback after a serious ankle injury last October. He beat a seeded US Open quarter-finalist before beating Marin Cilic to reach the fourth round, where he came up against the second seed. It was the best performance of his career and left him with nothing left to prove with a game that had been rated as one of the greats of his time.
But Federer’s stunning statement left the sport’s governing body the International Tennis Federation reeling. It had led the world by one set on two occasions and won 14 out of the previous 19 meetings between the two, but it was his retirement last summer that made it clear that Federer was done and dusted.
“It’s just like that with all the great players,” said Federer afterwards. “You never know how a great player is going to end – how I am going to end, I can’t really say – but I have always kept it up with every tournament I have played. I didn’t think it would be possible to keep it up with all the results I have had.
“For me, it’s not like retiring. It’s not like, ‘I would like to stop playing or retire, but I am not sure if I can play well when I will be back to normal.’ I think even at the end of my career, I played well enough to keep going. Of course, I made mistakes, but the most important thing to me is that I played a good match or two, good enough to take the last four points.
“I had a great couple of years and people have always tried to say that for me,
