Roger Federer was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island, where the 20-time Grand Slam singles champion fought back tears while describing the honour as one of the greatest of his life.
Federer, who retired from professional tennis in 2022, was celebrated in front of several of the sport’s leading figures, including Billie Jean King and John McEnroe. The Swiss player, now 45, made his main tour debut in 1998 at the age of 16 and went on to establish one of the most successful careers in tennis history.
“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 love it as much as I do.”
Federer won a record eight men’s Wimbledon singles titles, along with six Australian Open titles, five US Open crowns and one French Open. Only Rafael Nadal, of Spain, with 22 Grand Slam singles titles, and Serbia’s Novak Djokovic, with 24, have won more men’s major singles championships.
His first Grand Slam triumph came at Wimbledon in 2003. Federer spent 310 weeks as world number one, a total that stood as a record until it was surpassed by Djokovic.
The Swiss also achieved Olympic success, winning doubles gold alongside Stan Wawrinka at Beijing 2008 and singles silver at London 2012. He was later part of the Switzerland team that won the Davis Cup for the first time in 2014.
Federer began his relationship with professional tennis at an early age, having worked as a ball boy at an ATP tournament in Basel when he was 13. During his Hall of Fame speech, he chose to reflect on some of the less familiar statistics from his career.
“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,” said Federer.
“That’s more than [Bjorn] Borg and [John] McEnroe combined.
“And if you think that’s impressive, I wore probably over 7,000 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 wiped away tears while thanking his wife Mirka, his tennis idol Stefan Edberg and “every ball kid who ever stood through” his matches.
He also paid tribute to the different generations of players he encountered throughout his career, saying he was “incredibly lucky” to have shared the sport with competitors including Andre Agassi, Lleyton Hewitt, Andy Roddick, Nadal and Djokovic.
“I need tissues and sunglasses and everything to protect me right now. This is such a mess,” Federer joked.
“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.”
