Roger and Rafa’s tearful farewell

Federer’s farewell signals the end of an era for tennis

AFTER the big cry came the big cry-off, with Rafael Nadal joining Roger Federer yesterday in withdrawing from singles play at the Laver Cup.

This followed the extraordinary late night scenes at the 02 Arena, which saw the two legends in tears following their final appearance together. It was approaching 2am when the two of them came in to reflect on being a part of Federer’s valedictory match, which had sparked a remarkable outpouring of emotion.

By then Nadal was on the brink of confirming that he would be flying straight home to be with his wife Xisca, who is in the final stages of a difficult pregnancy.

It appeared that the taxing personal events going on in Nadal’s life contributed to a rare public display of his feelings.

His withdrawal — a big disappointment to fans — was not a huge surprise, as it is understood that his replacement, Cam Norrie, was told some time ago to be fully prepared to step in.

It was also noteworthy that Nadal admitted that the retirement of Federer has had him thinking about his own future. Andy Murray, one year younger at 35, talked along similar lines last week, and you wonder how long it will be before there are more lachrymose farewells to members of this extraordinary generation.

‘I’m a pretty sensitive person, I’m not worried about crying. Crying is good sometimes, you need to let go of these emotions,’ Nadal told Spanish media.

At 36, and having survived a litany of injuries, the Spaniard suggested that it is not the first time of late that he has been contemplating the end.

‘I was close to that moment this year, I’m not going to lie to you. During Roland Garros I thought it might be my last tournament, this is the reality.

‘From there everything went very bad physically. I injured my abs twice, at Wimbledon and in New York. It’s been a series of major misfortunes, added to these personal issues.’

Nadal does not know when he will play next, but insisted he is trying not to think about stopping a career that has yielded 22 Grand Slam titles. He nonetheless admitted that the exit of Federer is a watershed: ‘When Roger leaves the tour, yeah, an important part of my life is leaving too, it’s hard.’

While Federer’s top flight career is over, providing his knee can stand it — and the evidence of Friday night was fairly promising — it is likely that he and Nadal will at some point reunite to play lucrative exhibition matches.

Although overcome as he publicly bade farewell, he stated that it had been more difficult informing personal friends to tell them when the decision was made last month.

‘It was hard for me making phone calls, letting people know that this was happening,’ he said. ‘There I felt pain, but now it was all happiness. To not be alone on that court for an entire evening, it helped a lot.’

The Laver Cup continued on with Federer and Nadal’s respective replacements, Matteo Berrettini and Cam Norrie, both having desperately tight rubbers with different conclusions.

By the time the British No 1 entered the fray Berrettini had scraped past Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime 7-6, 4-6, 10-7.

There was little to split Norrie from American Taylor Fritz, but from 8-8 in the deciding tiebreak he missed a pair of groundstrokes to go down 6-1, 4-6, 10-8. That left it more competitive than might have been expected, with the team points scores tied at 4-4 before the evening session.