Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are preparing to return in 2017. Federer will be 35 years old. Nadal will be 30, which might seem promising in an age when SO MANY VETERAN PLAYERS have thrived, if it were not for all the miles on Nadal’s fragile knees.
The last time Roger Federer did not appear in the ATP World Tour Finals, the season-ending tournament was not even called the ATP World Tour Finals.
The year was 2001. The site was the Sydney Super Dome in Australia, and the name of the tour championships featuring the top eight men’s players was the Tennis Masters Cup.
GUSTAVO KUERTEN, the Brazilian baseliner with the musical nickname (Guga), arrived as the No. 1 player, but failed to win even a round-robin match. Australia’s Lleyton Hewitt, then 20, took the trophy and the top ranking into the offseason after beating Sebastien Grosjean of France in the final.
FEDERER MADE HIS DEBUT in 2002 as the year-end championships moved to Shanghai, where he lost to Hewitt in a tough three-set semifinal. Hewitt retained the No. 1 ranking, but that was the end of his dominance.
Federer won the Masters Cup in Houston in 2003, dismantling 33-year-old Andre Agassi, 6-3,6-0, 6-4, in the final. “He plays the game very gracefully,” Agassi said after the rout. “He could bring a style that would capture people’s imagination, no question.”
So it has played out, with Federer capturing imaginations and titles until this year, an injury-disrupted season in which he had knee surgery, the first operation of his career, in February.
This story is from the November 26, 2016 edition of Sportstar.
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This story is from the November 26, 2016 edition of Sportstar.
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