Roger Federer: Novak Djokovic pays beautiful retirement tribute

Novak Djokovic has sent his well wishes in an emotional social media post to long-time rival Roger Federer in his forthcoming retirement at the Laver Cup in six days’ time.

The great Swiss man announced he would be calling time on his tenure in the sport on Thursday after a long and fruitful 24-year professional career.

We will see the ‘GOAT’ take to the court one last time in the Laver Cup, a team competition in which he is a part of Team Europe to take on Team World.

Federer’s team will be led by tennis legend Bjorn Borg and sees him also teaming up with Big Three rivals in Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, as well as rival Andy Murray.

The 41-year-old has met the latter 25 times, leading 14-11 overall against the Scot, but their rivalry was split in terms of dominance over the years.

In terms of matches against Nadal, the two have squared off a total of 40 times on all types of surfaces with Federer trailing 16-24.

Their most recent encounter was at Wimbledon in 2019 which saw Federer get the best of the Spanish star to reach the final of that competition.

Finally, Djokovic and Federer have faced each other a total of 50 times – the most matches of any of his rivals mentioned in this article – with the 20-time Grand Slam winner trailing 23-27 to the Serbian.

At the very same tournament Federer defeated Nadal to advance to the final, he and Djokovic had a near five-hour barn-burning match with the final set going to a tiebreak.

Due to announcement made by the ‘GOAT’ earlier this week, Djokovic has released a touching social media post of his own to wish the great man the best while reminiscing on their time together.

A post shared by Novak Djokovic (@djokernole)

In the emotional tribute to his long-time rival, he said: