Roger Federer has been inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, calling the achievement “one of the greatest honours” of his life.
The 20-time Grand Slam singles champion, who retired from professional tennis in 2022, became tearful during the ceremony in Newport, Rhode Island. Federer reflected on his career in front of tennis legends including Billie Jean King and John McEnroe.
Federer made his main tour debut in 1998 at the age of 16. He went on to win a record eight men’s Wimbledon singles titles, six Australian Open crowns, five US Opens and one French Open.
“This is one of the greatest honours of my life,” Federer, 45, 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.”
Only Spain’s Rafael Nadal, with 22 major titles, and Serbia’s Novak Djokovic, with 24, have won more men’s Grand Slam singles titles than Federer.
Federer won his first Grand Slam title at Wimbledon in 2003 and spent 310 weeks as world number one, a record until Djokovic surpassed it. He also won Olympic doubles gold for Switzerland with Stan Wawrinka at Beijing 2008 and singles silver at London 2012.
In 2014, Federer was part of the Swiss team that won the Davis Cup for the first time.
Federer reflects on the numbers behind his career
Federer began his tennis journey as a 13-year-old ball boy at an ATP tournament in Basel. During his Hall of Fame speech, he highlighted some of the lesser-known 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 as he thanked his wife, Mirka, his tennis idol Stefan Edberg and “every ball kid who ever stood through” his matches.
He also said he was “incredibly lucky” to have played alongside several generations of tennis stars, 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.”
