‘Greatest honour of my life’: A tearful Roger Federer enters Tennis Hall of Fame
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "‘Greatest honour of my life’: A tearful Roger Federer enters Tennis Hall of Fame")
‘Greatest honour of my life’: A tearful Roger Federer enters Tennis Hall of Fame Photograph: (@TennisHalloFame)
A tearful Roger Federer entered the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, calling the honor one of the "greatest of his life" during an emotional induction speech.
Veteran Roger Federer entered the International Tennis Hall of Fame on Saturday (Aug 29), describing his formal entrance into the sports pantheon as one of the ‘greatest honours of his life.’ A tearful Federer, who has won 20 Grand Slam singles titles, frequently turned emotional while addressing a crowd bristling with tennis royalty at a ceremony in Newport, Rhode Island.
The Swiss tennis legend, who officially retired from professional sport in September 2022, paid tribute to his opponents, officials, fans, family and friends for helping him reach the pinnacle of the sport and for his love of the game.
"This is one of the greatest honours of my life," Federer said. "They call this the Hall of Fame, but fame was never the goal.
"My goal was to spend my life doing something I love...with people who I love it as much as I do."
In a light-hearted preamble, Federer brought up some of his unique or lesser-known statistical milestones outside of his tennis ones.
"Not the obvious stats like the number of majors or number of weeks at number one," Federer said. "I'm talking about the numbers that really paint a picture. Between 1998 and when I first went on the ATP tour, and when I retired in 2022, I wore more than 5,000 headbands. That's more than (Bjorn) Borg and (John) McEnroe combined.
"And if you think that's impressive, I wore probably over 7000 pairs of socks. That's probably twice as many as most of my opponents, because I doubled them up.
"But really, there's no way to measure what it means to be here. It's hard to put it into words," Federer said, reflecting on his journey from being a 13-year-old ball boy at an ATP tournament in Basel to the pinnacle of tennis.
"I really want to thank every ball kid who ever stood through my matches or all our matches, for that matter, for hours on end," Federer said. "I see you. I thank you. I was you."
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The eight-time Wimbledon winner had to wipe away his tears midway through his speech several times as he name-checked his idol Stefan Edberg, other tennis stars, family and support staff who had inspired him throughout his career.
"I need tissues and sunglasses and everything to protect me right now," he joked. "This is such a mess."
"It's been an incredible journey," Federer said. "For me, the International Tennis Hall of Fame provides a great opportunity to look back, but also to look ahead," he added.
"As you can tell, I'm still writing my love letter to tennis. My time as a player is done, but tennis will always stand at the intersection of everything I care most about: my family, our friendships, the past 40 years, the future we're building. Tennis for me is responsible for it all."
(With inputs from AFP)
