Federer reveals big concern about Nadal: What did he say about the Spanish star?
The Swiss legend looked back on his last days as a tennis player in an interview for ‘El País’. “You’re at a kind of funeral of your own life,” he said about his retirement.
A tennis legend announced his retirement almost two years ago. “When Roger leaves the tour, an important part of my life is leaving too,” Rafa Nadal said in the past, while many fans have the same feeling.
On September 24, 2022, Federer retired from tennis. After 14 months without playing an official match and undergoing surgery three times on his right knee, he hung up his racket in the Laver Cup. He did it next to Nadal, with whom he played a doubles match for the ages.
At the end of the match, both players sat on the bench, touching hands, leaving an image for the ages. “I have the picture at home, framed, in a space where I keep some other images of my career,” Roger revealed in an interview for El País. The Swiss legend reviewed the last days of his career on the occasion of the documentary premiere ‘Federer: Twelve Final Days’ (June 20, on Prime Video).
Federer’sbiggest concern about Nadal
“Look, it’s an incredible feeling like you’re at a kind of funeral of your own life. It’s a very strange feeling, to be honest. You are completely alert and experience a great slow-motion blur of everything that is happening. It’s like an operation: you only know what it feels like once you have gone through it. I never would have thought the ending would be so full of experiences”, Federer explained about his retirement after many fitness issues.
“I worked for I don’t know how long, a year or more, to be able to play that last doubles match. It was crazy. So when you consider all this, the ending was beautiful and I enjoyed many moments,” he explained.
Throughout the interview, Federer had some nice words for Nadal, with whom he not only maintained the greatest rivalry in tennis history (alongside Novak Djokovic), as they were and are very good friends too.
“I was worried that he would have to quit before me,” he stated. “There were signs that made me feel that he was not well and that he was not going to last as long as he has,” he added.
Federer: “I thought Nadal might retire after beating Medvedev or at Roland Garros”
Now, Federer enjoys watching Nadal’s last matches as another fan, worried about the Spanish star’s fitness and willing to see if Nadal can recover his level of old. But Federer had had this kind of anxiety regarding his opponent and friend for a long time. “I was worried he might retire after beating Medvedev in the final of the 2022 Australian Open. There or at Roland Garros. I would have been happy but him, but it would have been a shock,” he confessed.
Federer’s relationship with the 22-time major winner (the Swiss has 20 titles, Djokovic 24) is reflected in the picture he has framed in his house.
“When I pass by this one, it always catches my attention because it reflects our camaraderie, our friendship, and also our rivalry, all in a single image,” he says about that emotional moment sitting next to Nadal, touching hands, in the Swiss’ retirement.
“At that moment, Ellie Goulding was singing and it is a moment in which we were both able to reflect on everything we had just experienced, remembering our career and how lucky we have been to be tennis players. It was a great, short moment, holding hands for a second and basically showing my gratitude through that touch,” he recalled. An image for tennis and sports history.