NEWPORT, R.I. — Four years after the official end of his career, and five years after he walked off the Wimbledon grass in his final singles match, Roger Federer, the Swiss master who played tennis as everyone dreams of playing it, became a member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame.He wore a tan suit, a pressed white shirt and blue tie that matched all the blazers in the crowd. On a perfect, late summer evening, with more than 5,000 people filling two viewing areas for an event that has long been something of an afterthought on the summer sports calendar, Federer strutted across the historic grass in Newport, known as the birthplace of American tennis a century and a half ago, and did what he did for more than two decades on the court. He became a part of history.Federer, the 20-time Grand Slam champion, didn’t enter the Hall of Fame alone. First, Mary Carillo, the former player and trailblazing broadcaster and journalist, had her moment. Together, they shared more than an induction. Their speeches were marked by tributes not to themselves and their careers but to others. To the people in their own, personal Halls of Fame that had helped them stand on the stage from which they gave them.“Mary Carillo is one of the world’s best storytellers,” sports icon Billie Jean King said of Carillo during her introductory remarks.King told the story of meeting Carillo just months before she and her neighbor from down the block in Douglaston, Queens, won the mixed doubles title at the 1977 French Open. That would be someone named John McEnroe.Carillo, whose playing career ended early due to injury, became the first woman to break through as a full-time commentator in tennis. She later went on to an award-winning career as a journalist and sports anchor, whose posts included hosting Olympic telecasts for NBC.“She’s really a big deal,” King said.Carillo also had the greatest and worst luck to get into the Hall of Fame this year as its 273rd member. Anyone who ended up in that slot would have had to be playing warm-up. The Hall of Fame itself rejigged itself, putting on something of a Federer-fest with an atmosphere to match.In the end, it was Federer who had all the luck. Carillo delivered a speech so rousing, witty and tender all at once that following her became something of an impossibility.“What an honor to honor Roger, this funny-looking guy over here,” Carillo said.“Roger operates on a level few of us can ever contemplate.”It’s often said that great athletes struggle to talk about their sport and their accomplishments. Federer started a little that way as the daylight faded, listing off the Slams he had played and some career numbers with a little stiffness. But as he went on, and the emotions started to come as he had known they would, he defied that stereotype. He described his sport as “a complex and beautiful thing.”It certainly was when he played it, and it’s why the grounds of the Hall of Fame were packed for hours before the ceremony, usually an afterthought in the summer sports calendar, was anywhere close to beginning. It was the biggest concentration of “RF” hats since the grand Federer farewell doubles match with Rafael Nadal at the Laver Cup in 2022.“I’m still writing my love letter to tennis,” he said near the end of a tear-filled speech filled with gratitude for everyone who had helped him along the way and through his journey. “This is not a goodbye.”But in between Carillo’s brilliant performance, which even included a poem dedicated to the rivalries that she had watched evolve through her career, and Federer’s emotive roll call, fell the answer to the question that everyone seemed to be asking.Who would induct him>Last year, Serena Williams surprised everyone when she inducted Maria Sharapova. That was a curveball. Williams and Sharapova had a prickly relationship during their careers.Federer didn’t have too many prickly relationships during his playing days, and there were plenty of candidates. Rafael Nadal was everyone’s first guess, because, of course. Federer, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray had been on hand for Nadal’s tribute at the French Open last year.Instead, it was was someone better. Mirka Federer walked up to the microphone to represent the partnership they formed through tennis and through life, as husband and wife, father and mother, and, according to Federer in his speech, coach, hitting partner and stylist.She rarely speaks publicly. She carried it off like she does it all the time.“When we met he had zero ATP titles,” she deadpanned.She recalled Andy Roddick, sitting in the front row, once saying after Federer beat him in the Cincinnati Open final, “I can’t believe I lost to a guy whose girlfriend warmed him up.”She had the best seat in the house to watch his playing days unfold and told the story of him insisting on bringing their two sets of twins on the road with them for the last dozen years of his career.“Those values have carried him through every chapter of his life,” she said.Then it was Federer’s turn. He long ago surprised himself by becoming one of those sports stars unafraid of showing emotion in public. He struggles with it. He said the other night in an interview that the prospect of it still made him nervous, even though the vulnerability helped people see something other than the fire and ice champion who seemed to win while barely breaking a sweat.It was part of the reason for an induction into a Hall of Fame unlike anything Newport had experienced.“Fame was never the goal,” Federer told the crowd. “The goal was doing something I love with people I love.”He recalled being a ballboy in Basel as a 13-year-old and the soreness he felt in his legs, and learning the game with his father’s wooden racket and white balls.“That’s how old I am,” he said.He choked up momentarily at the mention of two of his coaches who died years ago, Peter Carter and Peter Lundgren, as well as when he spoke of his childhood hero, Stefan Edberg, seated in front of him, coming aboard to guide him. And then again at the mention of Severin Lüthi, his longtime coach of 18 years.Then, whether he wanted them to or not, those emotions started to pour out.This was not his Dartmouth College graduation keynote of 2025, filled with its lessons on getting up after falling down. He said the other day he didn’t want to be teaching a class. He sort of did though, as he gave a roll-call of thank yous that put shame to any Oscars speech.“I need tissues and sunglasses, I need everything to protect me,” he said as his voice cracked and his eyes dripped. “This is such a mess.”Yes, the player and person who seems to so effortlessly glide through life, stumbled through his speech as he built toward the part that was always going to be the hardest, “the Mirka bit,” as he called it.Roger Federer could not contain his emotions during his speech. (Joe Buglewicz / Getty Images)“We grabbed hands and ran through walls,” he said of his wife.Federer explained that he had a simple plan through his 4,040 competitive singles sets.“I tried to show my love for the game, it mattered to me and I wanted it to matter to you,” he said.Mission accomplished there.He described the sport as “a volcano of pressure,” but also paid homage to the lighter moments he misses, the camaraderie in the locker room and playing cards until the last moments before his matches. He urged players to stay young at heart and to strive the way he did, to “do things with the game we have never seen before,” he said. “Keep getting better and better and better.”And then there was a last nod to the kids like him, who still play on courts they draw with chalk on the streets where they love and the ballkids who watch the game with one knee on the clay. He promised he would always see the game through their eyes.He knows those eyes well. They’re the same thousands of eyes that travelled to a little town in New England this weekend to watch a great one perform one more time.