Federer doco follows the tennis god during final playing days

To say that Twelve Final Days is for the hardcore Federer fan is being kind. From the protracted online release of his retirement announcement to his star-studded farewell at the Laver Cup in London, Twelve Final Days is worshipful.

Roger Federer: the greatest of all time? Picture: Mark Stewart

A documentary on Prime Video offers a wistful coda to Roger Federer’s storied career, featuring tributes from such fellow stars as Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.

“Sports people die twice,” notes a member of the entourage in Federer: Twelve Final Days, and it is an apt observation given the funereal pace taken toward Federer’s farewell tennis match in 2022.

Less a career overview than a lengthy valediction, Twelve Final Days considers what is meant when a professional athlete – especially one as celebrated as Federer – has to stare into the post-career abyss. Federer seems more likely than most not to go blind.

A young hothead who evolved into one of the sport’s more gracious winners, Federer won 20 Grand Slam titles, a gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and was the first Swiss player to win the four major men’s tournaments. No less than John McEnroe calls Federer “the most beautiful player I ever saw ... a Baryshnikov of the tennis court.”

That the superlatives are coming in hot throughout Twelve Final Days is no surprise given Federer’s achievements; neither is the fact that the players hurling bouquets include Nadal, Djokovic, Andy Murray and even Björn Borg, whose career pre-dated the Federer era and who was long one of the sport’s more reclusive stars.

But to say that Twelve Final Days is for the hardcore Federer fan is being kind. From the protracted online release of his retirement announcement – hardly a surprise, given his knees – to his star-studded farewell at the Laver Cup in London, Twelve Final Days is worshipful in a way that may surprise fans of Asif Kapadia.

The filmmaker (credited as co-director here with Joe Sabia) made his feature documentary debut with a masterpiece, Senna, about Brazilian Formula 1 racer Ayrton Senna, and later directed Amy, the brilliantly painful portrait in doom of singer Amy Winehouse. (Diego Maradona is also a favourite.)

Federer, who is charming throughout and seems to enjoy the happiest of home lives, has also earned the respect of his peers, some of whom, it is acknowledged, might have matched his athleticism if not quite his temperament or ­dignity on court. At the same time, they might make for more exciting documentaries.

Roger Federer attends the Amazon premiere of the documentary. Photo by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images)

Federer proves himself frank in assessing his approach to the sport, and a philosophy that evolved as he moved into the highest ranks of tennis. He was not going to be, he recalls telling himself, a player who resorted to surgery to sustain his career; he would rest when necessary; he would allow himself time to heal.

“Doing surgery is the beginning of the end,” he remembers thinking.

“And I was not wrong.”

By the end, he had four knee surgeries. “If I had known that from the beginning, I would have never embarked on this journey,” he says.

Whether he means the medical journey or the tennis journey is never quite clear.

What is evident, and touching, and also very intriguing about Twelve Final Days is Federer’s interaction with his great rivals, specifically Nadal and Djokovic, and the mix of fondness and loss the other tennis players feel at Federer’s departure from competition – if not, as he insists, the game.

Borg has one kind of perspective. But for the other players, the Federer exit is just the first of many to follow, from what has been an electrifying generation of talent.

At the time of filming, Federer was 41 years old, but his teammates at the Laver Cup, which provides the most sustained tennis action in Kapadia’s movie, are not markedly younger.

They all get behind Federer as he says goodbye, perhaps to take some notes on the classy way he does it.

Federer: Twelve Final Days is streaming on Prime Video.