If Serena was a pioneer of expressiveness, Federer was a throwback to the sport’s self-contained past. Serena had to let us, her opponent, and herself know how much she wanted to win. For her opponents, the most ominous may have been those periods of time when she made no noise at all. The victory twirl when another win was secure. The slow, authoritative walk between service points that let everyone know the match would be played at her pace. The high cry of exasperation after a wild miss. The “come on”/double fist-pump combination that she unleashed after a big point. The “come on”/fist-pump combination that kicked her into gear. She had an expression for every occasion. There had been vocal players before Serena, but few used their emotions with such passionate effectiveness. But when it came to their on-court demeanors and ways of showing their emotions, they could hardly have been more different. Roger and Serena are the same age, their careers spanned the same 20-odd years, and each of them brought a new playing style to the sport that proved to be highly influential. Serena’s expressiveness, and Roger’s reticence Here are five things I’ve missed about Roger and Serena, which no one is likely to match this year, or anytime soon. Yet over the past five months there have been moments when I’ve had to remind myself that they really aren’t coming back, and that their long co-era is over. They gave us time to get used to life without them before they signed off for good. Neither Federer nor Serena had played much, or mounted any major challenges, over the previous two seasons. Their retirements also didn’t come out of the blue. That covers 1968 to 2018, the year Federer won the last of their combined 43 Grand Slam singles titles. Together, they were the best players of the Open era’s first 50 seasons. Together, these two 41-year-olds, who were born a month apart, defined pro tennis in the 20th century. That’s not a lot of time to let their absences sink in, especially when you consider how long we had been watching them. Serena made her own last stand, against Ajla Tomljanovic at the US Open, three weeks earlier. Is it too soon to miss Roger Federer and Serena Williams? In Federer’s case, it has been five months to the day since he played his final point, with his friend Rafael Nadal by his side, in a Laver Cup doubles match in London.
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