Roger Federer, eight days ago, at the centenary party at the Center Court of the All England Club, home of Wimbledon. Photo: REUTERS / Hannah Mckay
The Swiss Roger Federer, tennis legend and from Sunday third in the race for the top winners of the Grand Slam tournaments – behind the Spanish Rafael Nadal and the Serbian Novak Djokovic, recent champion at Wimbledon-, It’s disappeared this Monday of the ATP world rankings. Yup, the Basel phenomenon does not appear in the official list of the professional circuit for the first time in 24 years and 10 months. To be more precise, a total of 9,058 days have passed.
Federer, who finished 97th in the standings last week, had to drop past the top 100 due to the points he was about to lose since the last time he added, a year ago, when he lost in the quarter-finals of Wimbledon at in the hands of the Polish Hubert Hurkacz.
However, instead of collapsing in this insane ranking that had formed after the third Grand Slam of the season had not distributed points, Her Majesty of Tennis was suddenly removed from the list.
What happened? Federer, who had added his first pro points on September 22, 1997, when he participated in a satellite tournament in Bossonnens, Switzerland. Now, in the new calculation, Elveziano has run out of beans to add, as he has nothing to defend after a year of inactivity.
Federer is not ranked for the first time after 24 years and 10 months.
Paradoxical because Federer, winner of 20 Slams, has not yet decided to retire. In fact, on Sunday last week, he was at the centenary celebrations of the Center Court of the All England Club, home of Wimbledon and made it clear that at 40 he still doesn’t think about putting down the racket.
“I hope I can come back once more. I missed this place” said the eight-time champion during the ceremony to commemorate the legendary course inaugurated in 1922.
The Swiss has been away from the circuit since he was eliminated in the quarter-finals of the English tournament in 2021. “When I left the field last year, I knew the coming year was going to be difficult,” Federer said.
The Swiss is expected to return to competition by the end of the year at the Laver Cup, staged in London in September. And he will also be present at the ATP in Basel, his birthplace.
“I didn’t think it would take that long to get back on the circuit. The knee didn’t do well with me,” he added.
With information from AFP
Source: Clarin
