Swiss international tennis player, Roger Federer on the 21st of September, 2022 announced his retirement from professional tennis aged 41.
Roger Federer, the racket-throwing Swiss teenager who matured into one of the world’s most polished athletes and was part of a generation that dominated tennis for two decades. A 20-time grand slam champion, Federer announced in a social media post his last game as a professional player.
“The Laver Cup next week in London will be my final ATP event. I will play more tennis in the future, of course, but just not in Grand Slams or on the tour,” he wrote. Federer’s management firm, Team8, are founders of the Laver Cup, a Ryder Cup-style event.
Federer leaves the game with one of the greatest competitive records in its history: 103 tour singles titles, 20 Grand Slam singles titles, 310 weeks ranked No. 1 and a record six victories in season-ending tour finals. And, perhaps most remarkably given his long run, he never was forced to stop playing a match he had started because of an injury.
“I am 41 years old; I have played more than 1,500 matches over 24 years,” Federer said in an audio clip posted on social media. “Tennis has treated me more generously than I ever would have dreamed, and now I must recognize when it is time to end my competitive career.”
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For a large period, Federer held the men’s record for total grand slam titles, outpacing his idol, Pete Sampras, the previous record holder whose count of 14 was once considered to be almost untouchable.
Throughout his career he unlocked other records that stand as a marker of his consistency and excellence, such as reaching 23 consecutive grand slam semi-finals and 36 consecutive quarter-finals. Federer has won 103 ATP singles titles, 28 ATP Masters titles and six ATP Finals. Of his 1,526 matches on the ATP tour, he compiled a 1251-275 (82%) singles record.
Federer has not competed since Wimbledon last year when he lost 6-3, 7-6(4), 6-0 in the quarter-final to Hubert Hurkacz and it emerged he had reinjured the knee that had kept him out of the tour for more than a year. Federer has contested five events since January 2020 and has undergone three knee surgeries in that period. He cited his late-career injury problems as the reason for his retirement.
And though he made it clear that his days of tour-level tennis would end, he hinted that he intended to continue playing a role in the sport.
