Roger Federer left his opponent and everyone in the audience stunned as he overruled the umpire in unprecedented scenes

Tennis legend Roger Federer once left his opponent and the audience stunned by overruling an umpire during a match which demonstrated one of his brilliant qualities.

Federer is widely regarded as among the greatest players of all time in the sport thanks to his exploits on the court in a career spanning around 25 years.

The Swiss - who retired from playing in 2022 - was part of a golden era of men's tennis where he regularly competed for Grand Slam titles alongside Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray.

Overall, Federer has 20 Grand Slam crowns to his name.

Of these, he boasts eight Wimbledon titles, six Australian Open crowns, five US Open triumphs and one win at the French Open.

His final Grand Slam title proved to be the Australian Open in 2018 where Federer defeated Marin Cilic.

Federer also represented Switzerland at the Olympic Games, claiming gold in the doubles at Beijing 2008, and a silver in the singles at London 2012 after being beaten by Murray.

Throughout his career, one of Federer's qualities which attracted so many fans to him was his sportsmanship, which in turn saw him win the Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award on a total of a record 13 occasions.

And that sportsmanship was on show in abundance back in 2018 at the Rotterdam Open, which Federer went on to win by defeating Grigor Dimitrov.

In the quarter-final phase, Federer faced Dutchman Robin Haase, and the latter took the lead by winning the first set 6-4.

Federer levelled the match by winning the second set 6-1 as the encounter went into a third deciding set.

Roger Federer. (Image: Getty)

Federer was leading 1-0 with a score of 40-15 and appeared to have won the game with a direct ace.

The crowd cheered, but instead Federer began preparing for a second serve, which left Haase confused and prompted him to call out across the court to his opponent: "Roger, no one called 'out'."

But Federer simply replied 'It's out' and the match umpire took his word for it and allowed him to serve again, with the decision receiving applause from the audience.

Federer went on to win the third set 6-1 to progress, before beating Andreas Seppi in straight sets in the semi-final on his route to defeating Dimitrov in the final.

Haase is still playing tennis professionally at the age of 38, with his best Grand Slam career result being a runner-up in the doubles of the 2013 Australian Open.