Roger Federer on Retirement and His Evolution in Tennis

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 23 September 2022

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Roger Federer is playing the last professional tennis match of his career this week. It’s the end of an incredible run. Over two decades, he has demonstrated an unmatchable court intelligence and temperament, winning twenty Grand Slam titles and spending three hundred and ten weeks as the top-ranked men’s player. In 2019, on the eve of playing in his nineteenth U.S. Open, Federer spoke with David Remnick about how he got over an early hot temper and predilection for throwing racquets on the court. At the advanced age of thirty-eight—and as a father of young children—Federer explained what he had to give up in order to keep playing professionally. “I think it’s nice to keep on playing, and really squeeze the last drop of lemon out of it,” he told Remnick, “and not leave the game of tennis thinking, Oh, I should have stayed longer.” This segment originally aired on August 23, 2019.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:08.4	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. For anyone who cares about the sport of tennis,
0:14.8	it's been a rough couple of weeks. Two of the all-time grades have retired, leaving a hole in the game the size of, I don't know what.
0:22.1	Serena Williams has played what's likely her last tournament, the U.S. Open, and Roger Federer is playing his last match at a tournament in London.
0:30.9	When I talk with Federer a few years ago, he was 38 and already contemplating what his exit would look like.
0:37.4	But he was still playing like a champion
0:39.0	at that time. He spent 310 weeks ranked number one in the world and won a staggering 20
0:45.0	grand slam singles titles. Watching him was to watch a magician. And over a long career, he demonstrated
0:52.2	an unmatchable court intelligence and temperament.
0:56.3	I spoke with Roger Federer in our studio in 2019 when he was here for the U.S. Open.
1:03.4	Some fans may not know that when you were a kid, you had a pretty volcanic temper on the court, and you whiled that away.
1:10.6	When you watched John
1:12.1	McEnroe play or now Nick Curios or somebody like that you see them lose it on
1:16.2	the court how do you relate to that that kind of temperament on the court which is so
1:21.2	alien to you well I laugh about it because I think it's actually good it's good
1:27.1	that guys are showing their
1:28.3	temper. Well, I can totally relate to it because that's how I felt when I was younger.
1:34.9	And it's nice to see it still exists. I'm also sometimes more like this.
1:40.1	I used to smash rackets, throw rackets, but very clever, you know, so I wouldn't break the racket.
1:46.8	So I would throw it into the fence or I would throw it over the fence or into the tree or I don't
1:50.9	know what I would do, but not onto the ground where it would break and I would have to explain
1:54.0	myself to my parents and my sponsor maybe and ask for another racket because I smashed it.
	...

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