Roger Federer received a standing ovation as he returned to Wimbledon to lead a celebration to mark 100 years of Centre Court.
Absent from the tournament this year for the first time since 1997 as he continues his recovery from knee surgery, Federer received the biggest cheer in a parade of former champions.
Close to 30 winners of the main singles trophies including Rod Laver, Bjorn Borg, Billie Jean King, Chris Evert, Venus Williams, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray stepped out to hearty applause.
With eight singles titles to his name, @rogerfederer 🏆 🏆 🏆 🏆 🏆 🏆 🏆 🏆#Wimbledon | #CentreCourt100 pic.twitter.com/ucGLn0wW6q
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 3, 2022
Federer has not played a match since losing to Hubert Hurkacz in the quarter-finals here 12 months ago but is still targeting a comeback, which looks set to begin at the Laver Cup in London in September.
The 40-year-old said: “I’ve been lucky enough to play a lot of matches on this court. It’s great to be here with all the other champions. My biggest wins, my biggest losses. One of my big highlights was walking out here in 2001 with Pete Sampras.
“I hope I can come back one way or another. Of course I’ve missed being here. I knew walking out last year it was going to be a tough year ahead. It’s been a rough year but I’ve been happy at home.”
Sue Barker and three-time champion John McEnroe presented the show, which included Sir Cliff Richard reprising his famous 1996 rain break singalong of Summer Holiday complete with tennis backing singers – this time including Pam Shriver and Laura Robson.
Organisers might have been apprehensive about the reception three-time singles champion Margaret Court, who has been widely criticised for her views on gay marriage, would receive but, although not as effusive as for many others, there was polite applause.
There were some notable absentees, including seven-time singles champions Pete Sampras and Serena Williams and nine-time winner Martina Navratilova, who has been forced to stay away from the All England Club after testing positive for coronavirus.
Andre Agassi, Jimmy Connors, Steffi Graf, Boris Becker, Maria Sharapova and Virginia Wade were others missing from the parade while 1961 champions Laver and Angela Mortimer could boast the most long-lasting links to Centre Court.
The ceremony ended with another standing ovation for former semi-finalist Barker, who is in her final year of presenting duties for the BBC.
Barker, who has had to deal with many emotional players following final defeats, shed tears of her own on Centre Court at the reception.
“John McEnroe will be sent to Court 17 for going off script but thank you, that really does mean the world to me,” she said.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here