French Open: Serena Williams, Roger Federer’s contrasting exits and the questions it shouldn’t raise

Serena Williams and Roger Federer, two 39-year-old legends of sport, exited the 2021 French Open on Sunday in contrasting fashions.

Williams was downed in straight sets by 21-year-old Elena Rybakina who was playing her first Grand Slam fourth round match. It was a tough but achingly familiar loss for this recent version of Williams.

Federer, after playing past midnight to win a gruelling four-set battle against Dominik Koepfer, withdrew from his fourth-round match “listening to his body and making sure he didn’t push himself too quickly on the road to recovery.”

The manners of exit were as different as they could be but there was a strange shared sense of melancholy and hopefulness. Melancholy, at the thought that this was perhaps the final time the most enduring athletes in the sport competed at Roland Garros. Hopefulness, at the picture the two provided of their immediate future.

For the Open era Grand Slam chart-leading champions in their respective categories, the grass is greener on the other side of the English Channel.

Both Williams and Federer have they were looking forward to playing at Wimbledon later this month and to that end were pleased with their performance at Roland Garros. It is no secret that the grass courts of All England Club offer them…

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