We had planned to watch Federer in the Laver Cup at London’s O2 Arena, to watch Roger Federer. A month before the event, all of the big 4 (Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal, Novak Djokovic, and Andy Murray) confirmed their attendance. Something seemed to be in the air with this rare union. A week before our trip, Federer broke the sad news of his imminent retirement, and that the Laver Cup would be his last ATP tournament.
After Spain, London could not be more different. London has just come out of the mourning period of Queen Elizabeth and the locals seem to have come out of Covid-19, as if nothing has happened. The country is plagued with Brexit challenges, a double digit inflation, the beyond-dramatic political turmoil, the record high energy prices, the passing of the Queen, the pandemic. Were Londoners numb? Were Londoners indifferent? Were Londoners strong and resilient? Walking on the street, we could not feel the unrest that would have been totally normal in such a state of affairs.
London is arguably the city I stop over the most times over the years. Born and raised in Hong Kong, there are similarities between Hong Kong and London in shopping malls design, in bus terminals design, the HSBC bank and many other things. There is little language barrier. The location is convenient for people traveling into Europe. And there are long-time friends in London. There are a lot of things one can do in the city. Britain makes the top choice for HongKongers to send kids to college or move to. In spite of all these, London comes to me as a transition, as a hub towards a destination but not a place for personal connections. There are cities that I look forward to returning to. London is not one of them.
Our plane landed in London. We expected Heathrow airport, instead, the airport building showed “Luton”. It was one of the rarity that we ended up in the wrong airport and fortunately the right city. The Stratford hotel is situated in the middle of the two airports. Google Maps once again saved us from the blunder.
We like having a big English breakfast at a local cafe. That was what we got in the morning.
We had tickets for the Day 1 Noon session of the Laver Cup. Federer was not playing in that session. He showed up and cheered for his team from the benches. After the Day session, we followed where the lines were, and queued up for the practice sessions of Federer and Nadal. By the time we got to the top of the queue, Federer was done with his practice, we were only able to catch the practice of the harder working Nadal. In the evening chill, we watched the livestream of the night session at this fan zone outside of the Arena together with a couple of hundred die-hard fans. Federer and Nadal (Fedal) were a point away from the victory. It was not meant to be and for this match, winning was not the point either. The match was followed by an emotional interview and memorable farewell to Federer. The emotion was hard to describe – a mix of sadness, dread, nostalgia, camaraderie, happiness, gratitude, best wishes, letting go and moving on. By the time we were back to the hotel, it was beyond 1am and it was not easy to have a sound sleep with all these emotions running high. It has been a once-in-a-lifetime experience to witness the end of the era. Records are meant to be created and broken. I would forever miss Federer’s greatness in how he plays, how he connects with so many at the very human level for so many years.
2022 saw the retirement of the greatest in tennis : Serena Williams and Roger Federer. I need to retire from watching tennis for a little bit to recover. And we concluded our 2022 travel to recover.
oliviatamccue 
Leave a comment