At times, even Roger Federer has to be reminded of what he actually achieved. When asked to look back on his career after being inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, the 20-time Grand Slam winner was honest about parts of his resume still coming as a surprise.
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“I think getting to world number one, I mean it somehow has to be at the very top of everything that you achieve in life if you can be the best at something that is pretty special,” Federer said in a conversation with Sky Sports. “My eight Wimbledons, I don’t know, that’s like crazy when I return to Wimbledon, I go like what I did that? I mean it’s still kind of surreal to me now that I was just in New York, the streak of five in a row, knowing how hard that was, I think only kind of rings through now.”
“And then just having been in the game for a long time and having played all those incredible matches against all the legends and that hopefully I was kind of a bridge between the older generation and what we, the tennis that we see today, I feel very special that I had that chance to be that guy.”
Federer’s description of himself as a bridge isn’t just a sentiment. It’s an accurate depiction of his career. He joined the tour when the generation of Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, and Boris Becker was fading. He made his mark with Sampras’s swansong in the fourth round of Wimbledon in 2001 before securing his first major in 2003 with a thrilling victory over Mark Philippoussis in the Wimbledon final.
From there, he went on to win eight Wimbledon titles and five consecutive US Open titles, which he referenced in his reflection. He ruled that decade before Rafael Nadal arrived and became his ultimate rival, and then Novak Djokovic arrived, and the three of them together created a legacy that had never been seen in the sport, and were called the sport’s ‘Big Three.’
constructed a five-straight Wimbledon title streak that he referred to in his reflection and which was preceded by the emergence of his future rival, Wimbledon regular Rafael Nadal, and later the emergence of Novak Djokovic, who finished what came to be known as the sport’s Big Three.
He didn’t get to play a tour match with Carlos Alcaraz or Jannik Sinner, two of the men’s tennis stars now leading the way, but his career was just about long enough to pass the torch on. Federer’s last Grand Slam appearance was at Wimbledon in July 2021 when he lost to Hubert Hurkacz in the quarterfinals, and his last competitive match came at the 2022 Laver Cup, where he paired up with Nadal before officially announcing his retirement in September.
That same month, Alcaraz picked up his own first major at the 2022 US Open, a near-simultaneous switch of guard, without the two players ever meeting on the court. Sinner’s rise followed soon after, breaking through with his first major at the 2024 Australian Open.
Federer never got to test himself against the newest generation, but him being the bridge between the players before him and the ones carrying forward the legacy is something he appreciates the most.
The week that belonged to Roger Federer
That sense of disbelief ran through the entire induction weekend in Newport, Rhode Island, on August 29. Federer, introduced by his wife Mirka, opened his speech with a simple “Oh man, this is very high level and a tough act to follow” before breaking down repeatedly through the night, at one point joking he needed “tissues and sunglasses” to get through it.
“They call this the Hall of Fame,” he said, “but fame was never the goal. My goal was to spend my life doing something I love, with people I love.”
He closed by calling tennis “the intersection of everything I care most about” and describing himself simply as a boy from Basel who never expected to end up in a place like this.
The celebration continued two days later when Kim Clijsters presented him with his official Hall of Fame ring in the packed Arthur Ashe Stadium on August 31 in New York, the same court where he had played an exhibition during Fan Week. “What a pleasure to be back in New York,” Federer told the crowd, calling the whole week one of the most meaningful of his life.