It could be from the family residence in Wollerau, a three-storey glass house with large windows overlooking Lake Zurich, next to his wife Mirka Vavrinec and in the company of their children Myla, Leo, Charlene and Lennart, where for Pictures of those emotions , endless and distressing days at the O2 in London still recur from time to time in Roger Federer’s head, in which the farewell to his career was real and official.
Between the Swiss house and the penthouse of Le Reve in Dubai where he takes refuge from the cold and escapes from the winter, the traces of that end-of-year party planned for the Laver Cup travel, twenty-four years after his first professional and after an excellent group , full of hits elaborated in a spectacular way and with an admirable method of developing the game. Once.
Roger Federer understood that the body was not enough. That there were no further trips in his journey to extend the rat race and extend one-on-ones with Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic; that statistical, popular and even personal challenge for the consideration of the best in history.
The Swiss, already 41, had long been on the sidelines of those glorious moments of the big tournaments. It had been four since he had managed to win his last Grand Slam, in Australia. The twentieth in his career.
Between nostalgia and calm, Federer recalls that afternoon when he discovered the emotional fragility that invades every human being. What he has been able to hide so many times on the pitch as soon as he took office at the top and after surviving the rebellion of his youth. It was a special farewell because fate made sure that the atmosphere matched the character. That’s how it went. Active, in the middle of the track of the London headquarters, next to his rival, friend and teammate Rafael Nadal, with whom he had shared so many epic episodes. Roger and Rafa lost to Americans Jack Sock and Frances Tiafoe and marked the end of an era in tennis.
It wasn’t an impromptu goodbye. Federer walked towards the center of the track. The audience delivered, Nadal excited. A video on the scoreboard summed up an eternal career, with 103 individual titles, with twenty Grand Slams.
Alcaraz, the relief
The one who extends his story is Carlos Alcaraz, installed at the end of the year at the top of the circuit from where he contemplates a splendid future.
He will never measure his Alcaraz tennis against Federer’s. He is one of the regrets of the Murciano, a recognized admirer of the Swiss icon, who will never put the experiences lived during the past year into a corner.
The Spaniard erected as the youngest number one in tennis history took little time to reach the top. This 19-year-old teenager is already among the greats of the sport and has broken records that have always been set at every step. Alcaraz ended 2019 at number 492 in the rankings and a year later he reached 141 in December. Twelve months later, he crowns the world rankings. Mostly. Of the classics, of the legendary ones, of the consolidated ones and of the incipient ones.
From promise to rival to beat, the Spaniard still enjoys having exalted El Palmar with his conquests on that September 11 in New York when he definitively consolidated his distinctive traits in tennis by winning his first Grand Slam, the United States Open in Casper Ruud and storm the top of the circuit.
We remember Alcaraz who took the first steps in the path that now ends with the Umag 2021 trophy as his only merit. And suddenly Rio de Janeiro and, above all, the Miami Masters 1000. It was serious. Then came the triumph in Barcelona and, above all, the Masters 1000 in Madrid. There was no final that could resist that of El Palmar, which came full circle in the United States, its first major. In Umag and Hamburg he remained in the doorway.
Fifty-seven victories and only fifteen defeats and five titles sum up the transit of Alcaraz in his year of glory, 2022 in which he stood out among all, including Rafael Nadal, second in the standings who ended a season at the level that marks his career incomparable.
Christmas and fatherhood
The Spaniard opens his first Christmas as a father in Manacor, one step away from the start of his twenty-second year as a professional. Almost four months of adaptation to his new condition, to an unknown situation. For travel and distances. For your routine. An unexplored personal future and an uncertain event on the track.
2022 has been a strange course for Nadal, starting with a bang, stagnating in the middle of the course and ebbing at the end, with no inclination to take off. The Spaniard shone at the start, overwhelming. Undefeated during his first few tournaments which he won. Melbourne, the Australian Open and Acapulco. Twenty-one consecutive victories.
It took him two months to get back on track, but Roland Garros arrived and he didn’t forgive. He recovered his level and returned to reign in Paris for the fourteenth time. It was his 22nd Grand Slam, more than anyone else. Two above Federer and, at the time, also Novak Djokovic, who won again in the quarterfinals of the competition. But the physical warnings give the Spaniard no respite who maintains a permanent and particular struggle with injuries.
Nadal closes the year without reproaches, waiting for the dictates of his body for what’s to come. The track will mark the future, even with his incentives, clinging to the health and grit of rookies. And of Djokovic, also eternal, who reacted to the bad moments and to the veto due to the consequences of the pandemic in the first fraction of the course but who warned of the pattern to follow with victory at Wimbledon, 21 Grand Slams and a final season.
