"My wife & I cried 6 times" - Roger Federer opens up about coming to terms with retirement while watching his upcoming 'Twelve Final Days' documentary
Roger Federer opened up about his upcoming 'Federer: Twelve Final Days' documentary in a recent interview, admitting that watching it finally helped him come to terms with his retirement. The 20-time Grand Slam champion further revealed that it was such an emotional experience watching the documentary with his wife Mirka that they cried several times during the course of it.
'Federer: Twelve Final Days' is set to chronicle the Swiss icon's final days on the ATP Tour, where his farewell tournament came at the 2022 Laver Cup in London. Although his final professional match came at Wimbledon the previous year, Federer chose to have his final send-off at the team event, where he was joined by the likes of Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray.
The documentary is coming out on Amazon Prime, with the worldwide release planned for June 20. Speaking in an interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport about the emotional moments in the film, the former World No. 1 said:
"When my wife and I first saw the documentary, we cried about six times. That's where I accepted that my career was over."
Roger Federer also spoke about the contradictions between how he thought his retirement announcement would make him feel and what it felt like, conceding that he never imagined his final moments on the ATP Tour would be so beautiful.
"At first, I thought I was going to suffer a lot when I announced my retirement. That everything was going to be sad, but in the end everything was a party. I didn't imagine everything would be this beautiful. You'll see," he said (via Punto de Break).
While the 20-time Grand Slam champion did not play any singles matches at the Laver Cup, he partnered Nadal for a doubles match, following which an emotional farewell ceremony pulled the strings of tennis fans' hearts everywhere. Federer's wife Mirka and the rest of his family were also in attendance at the event and shared several heartwarming moments in front of the camera alongside him.
"I'm proud to share them with my fans" - Roger Federer on making public the vulnerable moments during the end of his career
Roger Federer also discussed in the interview why he chose to make public the vulnerable moments he had during the end of his playing days, admitting that he first wanted them to be private for just him and his family.
However, seeing how beautiful they were, the Swiss Maestro decided that it was not right to keep those moments just for himself, and therefore chose to share them with his fans.
"These are, truly, the last twelve days of my career. Many things happened in those days. The documentary shows the suffering, vulnerability and beauty that exists in an athlete's career. Those images, at first, were intended to be private, for my family, but we saw that they were so beautiful that we couldn't keep them just for ourselves. That's why I'm proud to share them with my fans," Federer said.