• Beaten by Hubert Hurkacz in the Wimbledon quarter-final on Thursday night, Roger Federer admitted that the pill was hard to swallow.

  • At almost 40 years old, the Swiss no longer seems in a position to pull off a new grand slam in the coming months.

  • While he hasn't decided anything about his future yet, the eight-time Wimbledon winner may have played the last GC game of his career.

This is probably one of the most dreaded papers we ever had to write.

The one who announces the decline of the Swiss empire Roger Federer, who will not see the Wimbledon semifinals being played on Friday, after his brutal elimination on Thursday against the Pole Hubert Hurkacz.

In a Center Court appalled by the tragic turn that the match was taking, the Wimbledon audience did not wait for the end of the Swiss ordeal, led two sets to nothing and 5-0 in the third, to stand up and give him a indescribable standing ovation to spin your hair (and tears).

An ovation for 22 years of memories đź‘Ź



It's been a pleasure as always, @rogerfederer #Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/GvsOenp68C

- Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 7, 2021

At the microphone of beIN Sport to comment on this match like no other, Lionel Roux appreciated this "moment of true emotion".

“At Wimbledon, in the public, they are real purists, they know the sport inside out and they understood well at that time that it was going to be very hard for Federer.

It was both encouragement to give him strength, they maybe had a tiny hope that he could come back, but it was mostly tributes to thank him for all the emotions he offered them during so many years.

"

"Opposite the guys are fifteen or twenty years younger than him!"

"

The encouragement didn't help, the mountain to climb was way too high. In truth, we quickly understood in the body language of the Swiss that the fight had been lost for a long time already. “Once he lost the second break, it was over,” says Roux. Mentally, the road to the reversal of the match was too long, too complicated. He didn't have the energy, the resources to turn it around like he could have done a few years ago. "" In the last games, I felt that I could not come back, "he himself confirmed at a press conference after the match.

Soon to be forty years old, Roger Federer as he is, when the body says niet, the body says niet. “We said to ourselves again that he was going to push the limits again, but no, at some point there is the reality of age, of the physical. Opposite the guys are fifteen or twenty years younger, it's hot !, notes the tennis consultant. And then, opposite, the other was playing very well and, above all, he was not impressed by Federer on Center Court, unlike what we have seen in the past with other players ”.

Finishing a grand slam at the gates of half at his age - when you see the speed at which, happy in our thirties, we see our knees and our joints go to waste - is already quite a feat in itself. Wouldn't we have been a bit naive dreaming of a final against Djoko next Sunday? "There is a bit of that", recognizes the former coach of the French Davis Cup team, before trying to understand what always pushes us to believe in Santa Claus.

“We believed in it but it's a bit of his fault too.

We have him so much… Not buried, but we said to ourselves "ah, it's going to be difficult to get back to the top, he's 35, he's 36, 37", etc.

When he came back in 2017, we thought he wouldn't hold out because he hadn't played for six months, that he had had big back pain, and there he arrived and he slammed the Open d ' Australia and Wimbledon in the same season!

Maybe that's why we still believe in him.

And then there may also be a little nostalgia, because we don't want it to stop.

"

A future in suspense, of course

It either. He has not yet made a final decision, leaving himself a few days to take stock and choose the best option for the future of his career and his life. But listening to his speech, it seems that the end is soon. When journalists spoke with him about mental wear and tear, after two knee operations and an obstacle course during the Covid pandemic to return to physical level to replay in Wimb, the Swiss nodded.

"Wear? Yes, there is that. It played a role. I experienced it in front of Félix [Auger-Aliassime, in Halle]. When you are led and you don't know what to do anymore because you are more limited than before. With all the efforts already made… You try, but it becomes more and more difficult. It was a bit the same against Hurkacz. Honestly, it's not a lot of fun to leave the court like that. But I've been through so much here that it's OK It's part of the game. Of course, I still want to play, but at my age you can't be sure of anything. "

Also not sure that the prospect of playing the Olympic Games behind closed doors excites him more than that.

If nobody wants to see him say stop, do we want to take the risk of seeing him do one tournament too many?

A pitiful elimination in a deadly silent Japanese gymnasium, that, never.

To choose, the standing ovation of a Center Court in admiration in front of the taulier, that has a little more allure, don't you think?

Sport

Wimbledon: King of turf Federer walks out the back door in quarter-finals against Pole Hurkacz

Sport

Rafael Nadal gives up Wimbledon and Tokyo Olympics in order to "let his body recover"

  • Sport

  • Roger Federer

  • Tennis

  • Wimbledon