"She was in crutches for a long time" - Roger Federer details his wife's early retirement from tennis
ATPSaturday, 20 July 2024 at 04:00
Former World No.1 Roger Federer recently opened up about his wife, Mirka Federer's premature retirement from tennis as a recurring foot injury cut her time short on the WTA Tour.
Mirka began playing tennis professionally in 1993, and attained a career-high ranking of World No.76 in September 2001. However, after developing a nagging foot injury, she was forced to retire a year later.
Federer addresses Mirka's struggles with the foot injury
In an appearance on Trevor Noah's What Now podcast, Federer spoke about various topics, including dating Mirka and the challenges she faced while dealing with a foot injury. The 20-time Grand Slam champion highlighted a point where Mirka was forced to use crutches, and recalls suggesting she retire if she continued to feel pain while playing.
"Have to go back to the early days you know when we got together pretty much at the Olympics in 2000," recounted Federer. "I was young at the time, Mirka was in the middle of her career, started to have some Achilles issues, struggling after the surgery to come back. I remember she was in crutches walking all the way through Paris,
"Super tough moments, she was in crutches for a long time. Over a month I think... She was doing rehab, always pain and then I told her, ‘Why don’t you just retire, I mean this is not the idea of playing tennis with pain all the time, and then we can be on tour together?’, and I was on the ascend of… starting to win Wimbledon, top 10, World No. 1. And she was like ‘Yeah you’re right, I’m done, it’s good!’"
"Super tough moments, she was in crutches for a long time. Over a month I think... She was doing rehab, always pain and then I told her, ‘Why don’t you just retire, I mean this is not the idea of playing tennis with pain all the time, and then we can be on tour together?’, and I was on the ascend of… starting to win Wimbledon, top 10, World No. 1. And she was like ‘Yeah you’re right, I’m done, it’s good!’"
The Swiss Maestro would go on to make a joke about how difficult it was for him to come to terms with his own retirement, while Mirka had little reservations when making the same decision.
"Then here we are, me… ‘Ah I don’t know if I should retire, I’m 36, you know, 37, 38, it’s so hard to retire’," said Federer. "I’m thinking of her, she just went like, ‘Okay I’m done, it’s no problem, what’s the big deal’. And I’m like, ‘It’s the biggest deal in the world to retire, I’m making it so emotional, I love the game so much’."
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