The guy’s serve allowed him to compete at the top of the game till he was about 38. I think he did pretty well out of it.

Do people expect players to just go on for ever?

 

The OP is laced with inaccurcies. Federer's knee gave way because of the sheer volume of matches he played (over 1500). The practises, the exhibitions etc etc.. The others have a lot of catching up to do on that front before any valuable comparison can be made (200-300). Wear and tear is an inevitable part of sport. Federer's lack of injuries is absolutely incredible. Nadal, for example, has had knee issues throughout almost his whole career. His game has always been incredibly demanding on the knees due to his muscle mass (now diminished) and a forehand technique which puts a lot of strain on the patella tendon. He's used all sorts of cutting edge treatments on his knee to elongate his career and has had various hiatus from the sport.
The biomechanics of Federer's serve are perfect.. The weight distribution is something every player would hope to emulate. What does unfortunately happen after one knee goes pop is that you will inevitability put additional conpensatory strain on the other. This, of course, is likely to injure the other knee - especially one that has had played so much high level sport.

Murray was born with one knee cap and played with a chronic back problem from 2009 onwards until the surgery in 2013. What he was able to achieve with such physical limitations is unparralleled in the sport. His hip problems predated the 2016 season so the notion that they were caused by overplaying is inaccurate. For me he carried too much muscle in the Lendl period which obviously puts additional stress on the hips for the final 5-6 years of his pre hip surgery career. If his gait was impacted by his back that would also impact the hips.

 

Federer's lack of injuries is a myth. He just Never made a big fuss out of it unlike some spaniard we all know...

2003 had back issues almost forcing him out of Wimbledon and hampered is chances during the USO swing
2003-2005 missed out on the whole indoor season just getting ready in time for the Finals.
2008 Suffered from mono for the first half of the season and was plagued with another back injury after the USO making him withdraw from Paris QF and almost retiring against Murray at the WTF
2010 suffered minor injuries throughout the entire clay season. Back problems during Grass swing again. (Look at his serving at Wimbledon that year. Absolutely awful)
2012 Back issues again at the start and tail and of the season. Having to Withdraw from Doha SF and Paris again.
2013 Severe Back issues again throughout the entire season par AO and WTF. That's the reason for his poor showings that year
2014 Back pain made him withdraw from the WTF final and got subsequently destroyed by Monfils at DC.
2016 Sick with Fever during Brisbane. Almost withdrew vs. Raonic and logically lost. And the rest of is injury story is all well known.

The only thing he has going for is that he was never injured enough until 2016 to actually miss a slam. Sure he missed a masters or other smaller event here and there but never a Slam

 

Fed's serve caused his back injuries but not his knees. I think knee injury is because of wear and tear of playing for 20 years along with sliding on HCs.

 

Was federer's serve the main catalyst behind his knee injury problems? Biomechanically the rest of his game has very low physical strain on his body, this was the main reason people thought he could play well into his 40s before these knee injuries started to occur. The serve on other hand creates quite a bit of strain on the knees and the back.

Its quite a turn of events when we thought grinders like nadal, djokovic and murray would be finished before federer because of their physical game despite the age advantage they have. In hindsight we can see the grinder's gamestyle is actually less biomechanically destructive provided they don't overplay like what Murray did and end up ruining his hip.

With attacking players like federer I would gauge they would cause alot more damage to their joints because of the amount of force they put into their strokes causing sharp recoil to quickly breakdown joints in quick succession. Whist a grinder with a more minimalist stroke mechanics would be less prone to the onset of joint degradation despite putting more mileage in their body, they do not overextend biomechanically like their attacking counterparts.

... The Bat-signal for Terrible--one has now been unleashed.

 

Whist a grinder with a more minimalist stroke mechanics would be less prone to the onset of joint degradation

Nadal's forehand minimalist?

 

 

I thought Federer injured his knee getting into a bath or something? Obviously never really recovered.

 

Yes I believe that is correct, he slipped and tore the meniscus. Tragic fate something like this would happen outside the tennis courts to end his career.

The torn meniscus although considered a minor injury would degrade the overall robustness of his knee. Overtime he would likely develop arthritis and articular cartilage damage which is not possible to heal from our current medical technology.

My hypothesis was that his service motion was the highest stress mechanic on his knees and back therefore it was the leading cause of the degradation of already weakened knees. Bear in mind both of his knees are wrecked at the end of his career not just his left knee that was initially torn in 2016 running a bath for his twin daughters.

 

Roggie was just 20-something wins away from surpassing Connors' open era 1273 wins.

That's a record neither Rafa or Nole will ever hope to touch.

So that's a very big loss for him, because all his other records are soon to disappear.

His injury has nothing to do with the serve motion, which was perfection. It's due to the constant strict body equilibrium he was maintaining in order to hit the appropriate and precise shot: the sudden change of direction of the entire body puts a lot of stress on the knees.

It's a bit like ballerinas who pick up hip injuries very early and need a hip replacement in their thirties. Very few people know that.

 

It is all that damn sliding on hard courts

 

The serve only hurt his back, not the knee

If you notice he did not bend back as much on the serve post-2013

But the timing and precision was so good, he was still very effective, while protecting the body

 

 

Did someone call ?

 

Jesus Christ!

 

Well, Nadal and Djokovic haven't reached the age where Federer started to become "finished". They might enter steep decline before Federer did. Federer was a top player until the AO 2020 and he was 38. We have yet to see what Nadal and Djokovic do at that age. Murray was obviously done well before.

I don't think the serve was related to it, he would have had issues before his mid '30s.

 

I should add Djokovic's elbow issues which are serve related and necessitated a complete change in his motion. Federer at no stage in his career fundamentally changed his motion due to injuries. Nadal, Murray and Djokovic have also had wrist issues which could be serve related. I don't remember Fed having such issues.

 

Perhaps he should have changed his motion, even got some knee braces but he chose not to ruin the aesthetics of his style.

 

What damaged his knees was the wear and tear of playing for over 20 years. Also, all the sliding on hard courts that he started to do in the 2010s decade didn’t help.

 

whatever the cause was is pretty much irrelevant. meniscus injuries are quite the bitch because initially there is not much of a handicap and you can play a normal schedule no problem and without any pain, but they basically always degrade over time until the damage is so severe that even surgery won't fix it completely. most likely fed waited too long to get the surgery done, they also tend to heal much harder the older you get.
back then in 2020 it was a huge red flag already when he had the two surgeries on the same knee with three months time in between, it pretty much sealed the deal for his career in tennis.

 

I opened whole thread about it. In my opinion his knee issues started because of sliding on hard courts. He started sliding a lot more on hard courts in his 30s (especially 2015 season and most importantly AO 2016). Besides sliding - of course natural wear and tear after years of playing at the highest level.