The tennis world lost two legends in quick succession; both Serena Williams and Roger Federer are some of the best players in the history of the sport, both of them gaining several championships and various other awards throughout their careers.
Serena Williams will go down as one of the most famous athletes of all time, period. Everyone in the US, and probably the world, knows who Serena Williams is, and the kind of impact that she has had is otherworldly. In total, she has a whopping 39 titles; 23 in singles, 14 in women’s doubles, and two in mixed doubles. But even with all of those titles, her impact off the court dwarfs all of them. As mentioned before, Serena Williams is known around the world, and as a black female tennis player, she has paved the way for so many others. Williams has been an inspiration to so many athletes all around the world, both in tennis and out. The whole world watched her last match and the whole world will be sad to see her go. However, while on the Late Night show with Jimmy Fallon, Williams hinted that she could come back to tennis. In a YouTube video of the interview, Williams described her retirement as an “evolution” of who she is as a person and what she wants to do afterward. When Fallon asked her if there was any chance she could return and pull a Tom Brady, she said that “he (Brady) started an amazing trend.” Of course, that answer has set the media into a small frenzy, and some think she may return at some point.
While Roger Federer may not have the same kind of social impact that Serena Williams had, he put up similar numbers when it came to titles: he won a total of 20 major singles titles, 28 ATP(Association of Tennis Professionals) Masters titles, and a record six ATP finals. He is widely considered one of the greatest tennis players of all time, much like Williams, but his career came to an end in a slightly different way. Serena Wiliams retired because she believed that it was time for her to go, but Federer was a different story. He had surgery on his left knee in 2016, and then underwent three more surgeries in a span of 18 months, the first two in early 2020, and the most recent in 2021 after Wimbledon. It seems that Federer retired because of issues with his knee, which is the worst way for anyone to go, especially one of the greatest tennis players to ever live.
Both Serena Williams and Roger Federer were legends of tennis, and the records and reputation that these two brilliant players have earned over the years won’t go away easily. Tennis is losing not just one, but two generational players, and it’s possible that players of their caliber won’t be seen for quite some time.
