5 reasons Federer winning the Australian Open could be the biggest story of the year

Federer deserves to go out on a high

Federer has said these are his last few years in the sport, and he is yet to take a call on 2018

Roger Federer has already gone down as the greatest tennis player of all time – but the terms of his departure from the sport, when it does come, should be his. Some of the greatest sportspersons of all time have had lean periods before going out on a high.

Brian Lara, considered one of the greatest batsmen cricket has ever seen, played his swan song at St. John’s in 2004, at the West Indies vs England test that April. He played a spectacular 400 not out knock, only the second ever quadruple century in First Class cricket – and a feat nobody has repeated since.

The iconic Ronaldo Nozario de Lima, one of the best footballers the world has ever seen and a man who has become synonymous with the sport, won the World Cup with Brazil in 2002, his perfect way to say goodbye to the sport he had enriched.

And for Sachin Tendulkar, he said goodbye to the sport he had loved all his life at his home grounds, Wankhede, in 2013, hitting a 74-run knock, just 79 runs from a 16,000 run tally – but impressive nevertheless, at a ground that had seen many of Tendulkar’s earliest successes.

Roger Federer, as much synonymous with tennis as these luminaries have been with their own sports, deserves just as grand a farewell from tennis in what he has admitted are the last couple of years of his career. In an ideal world, tennis fans – and the Maestro himself – would love to see that happen at Wimbledon, the Temple of Federer, but winning a fifth Australian Open title would be no small feat.