But Federer really was happy with his final match, and he was right to be. He had spent the better part of three years trying and mostly failing to get his surgically-repaired knees back into playing condition. He had become a star without a sendoff, a legend without an ending. The same was true of Serena Williams, until her electrifying three-night run at the US Open. On this evening, Federer joined her with an equally fitting final hurrah. During his career, he made tennis better in a variety of ways; virtually all of them were represented at the O2.
First, he was accompanied by his fellow Big 4 members—Nadal, Novak Djokovic, and Andy Murray—on Team Europe. Without Federer’s example, would they have achieved everything they achieved? We’ll never know, but the fact is that no male player before Federer won with the relentless consistency, on all surfaces, from week to week, Slam to Slam, year to year, that he did. Then, suddenly, two other players, Nadal and Djokovic, did the same thing.
Even more fitting was the presence of Nadal on the same side of the net with him. Roger and Rafa changed men’s tennis with their games and their achievements, but also with their friendship. That also wasn’t the norm among top rivals before Federer. The norm was McEnroe vs. Connors, Becker vs. Lendl, Sampras vs. Agassi; to say that none of them were buddies would be something of an understatement. But Federer and Nadal were. They understood there was room at the top for both of them, and tennis was the ultimate winner. They dueled in some the greatest matches of all time, and then sat down and cried next to each other when it was all over at the O2.