Federer says a star’s legacy isn’t at risk with late decline

Back to the drawing board

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Dec 19, (AP): Roger Federer arrives for his interview at the precise appointed time, steering his white sedan into a parking spot in an industrial area dotted by art galleries about 15 minutes from his luxury apartment in this homeaway-from-home.

After obliging a selfie request from someone on the street, Federer makes his way up to a second-story loft area and sits. He crosses his legs, kneads his right calf and winces.

“Just started training. I’m surprised I could walk the stairs as good as I have,” Federer says with a laugh. “My calves are, like, killing me. Just getting back into it. The shock on the body is, I don’t want to say ‘immense,’ every time, but I’ve been on vacation for two weeks. The shock just hits you hard.” Ah, the ravages of age. Federer, who won the first of his men’s-record 20 Grand Slam titles top of his sport.

When he’s told about a newspaper opinion piece from way back in 2013 – 2013! – that posited he should quit then to avoid ruining his legacy, Federer just smiles and waves his hand. He knows, of course, that he’s managed to reach another seven Grand Slam finals since the start of 2014, winning three.

But he also says the notion that an older athlete could harm his or her status by hanging around too long is nonsense, no matter what the decline looks like.

“I don’t think the exit needs to be that perfect, that you have to win something huge ... and you go, ‘OK. I did it all.’ It can be completed a different way, as long as you enjoy it and that’s what matters to you,” Federer says. “People, I don’t think, anyway, remember what were the last matches of a John McEnroe, what were the last matches of a Stefan Edberg. Nobody knows. They remember that they won Wimbledon, that they won this and that, they were world No. 1. I don’t think the end, per se, is that important.”

That doesn’t mean, of course, that he isn’t as competitive as ever or doesn’t want to win a 21st major championship – above all, No. 9 at Wimbledon, after it slipped away despite two match points in 2019 – or his first Olympic singles gold at the Tokyo Games next year.

Or win any tournaments, for that matter, which would push him closer to Jimmy Connors’ professional era record of 109 trophies (Federer has 103).

He’s still good enough, after all, to be ranked No. 3 – having spent a record 310 weeks at No. 1, he is currently behind No. 1 Rafael Nadal and No. 2 Djokovic – and to go 53-10 with four titles this season.

If it seems as though the rest of the world is insisting it needs to know when and how retirement will arrive, Federer says it’s not something on which he expends a lot of energy. Not anymore, anyway. “I mean, I don’t think about it much, to be honest,” Federer says. “It’s a bit different (now) that I know I’m at the back end of my career. But I feel like I’ve been toward ‘the back end of my career’ for a long, long time.”

So much so that when he got sick while on a skiing trip in January 2008 with what eventually was diagnosed as mononucleosis, he vowed to stay off the slopes, a decision he stuck to, although not without some regret.

Sampras In this Dec 15 photo, Roger Federer talks to the Associated Press reporter during an exclusive interview in Dubai, United Arab

Emirates. (AP)