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December 2004
Supreme Court
By Robert Sullivan, Vogue
With Roger Federer playing what may be the best tennis in history, Robert Sullivan discovers the champ’s winning style.
Perhaps you think that Roger Federer, the tennis player playing the
greatest tennis in the world today, is dying to talk about tennis.
Well, he is not. Today, in Los Angeles, in his denim blazer over a
hooded sweatshirt and T-shirt, with black Prada leather sandals and
Diesel jeans, he has no real interest in talking about this year’s win
at the US Open, which was a feat for the history books- he became the
first player in a long time not to play as if the game were merely a
display of brute strength, but to mix power with a kaleidoscopic array
of skills and play a luxuriously finessed game out of tennis past. Nor
does he want to talk about the Thailand Open in Bangkok, in which he is
scheduled to compete in a few weeks (a tournament he went on to win-
his 12th consecutive victory, an achievement he shares with only two
other players, Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe).
“I’ve answered enough times how my forehand works,” Roger says. The
answer, by the way, is magically. But to hear him talk about using it
against Andre Agassi, in one of his trademark you’ve-got-to-be kidding
moment, is like hearing him nonchalantly describe the sunrise over his
native Alps. “I smashed it back from the baseline for a winner,” he
recalls, shrugging, not seeming at all like a guy with a
130-mile-an-hour serve.
No, what Roger Federer wants to do is relax and enjoy a breakfast of
eggs Benedict at the Polo Lounge in Beverly Hills Hotel with his
girlfriend, Mirka Vavrinec. For the record, Mirka is not his coach.
Amazingly, in this day and age of hyper attenuated sports management,
Roger has no coach. He fired him last year [2003], around the time he
suffered a first-round loss in straight sets in the French Open. It was a move that showed
that the young man was ready to start thinking for himself.
Mirka is, however, just about everything else- his scheduler, his press
agent, his stand-in practice coach. If you could have been at the
Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens earlier this year, when Roger needed to
work on some shots before the start of the US Open, you would have
witnessed Mirka, a former top-100 women’s player on center court, on
the other side of the net. “I’m good for emergencies," she says.
Mirka is also most certainly his fusion coach and has been since they
met four years ago, during the Sydney Olympics. He is from the
northwest of Switzerland, in Basel; she is from the northeast, in Lake
Constance, a two-hour drive. While they play doubles matches only
occasionally, they almost always shop together. “She knows me better
than I know myself sometimes,” he says.
And as far as wardrobe goes, she has changed his life-even talked him out of dyeing his hair red.
“When we met, my wardrobe was…not exploding, but it was quite full,” she says. “And he had-
“Two jeans,” Roger interrupts.
“Two jeans and those blue sweaters,” Mirka says. “And I started to buy
him clothes. I try to read all the fashion magazines, but I try to be
----“
“Up to date,” Roger says.
“Up to date, yeah. I’m not like following---“
“The trends,” Roger offers.
“The trends. I’m not all trends. I rather like timeless…”
Despite his recent upgrade from tennis star to star, Roger is amazingly
low-key. As he walks out of the Polo Lounge and faces lobs of kindness,
as the Hollywood people are putting down their forks to say,
“Congratulations,” and “Hey, nice job” and “I just want to say that you
were incredible,” he looks like a well-mannered kid.
“Thank you very much,” he says, acknowledging the compliments
graciously. When he’s out of everyone’s earshot, he smiles and lowers
his voice: “Robin Williams is here.”
Roger in person is as he is on the court- a personal that is unlike
that of nearly every other male tennis champ, and perhaps the majority
of sports stars in general. In victory, he simply does not gloat. He is
not prone to the volcanic displays of emotions that professional
athletes are known for these days (although he did break down in tears
when he won Wimbledon). Such stoicism comes in par, he says, from his
roots. Die Weltoche, the Swiss-German newspaper, claimed his game
personality as Swiss, extolling his “seriousness, solidity, politeness,
and a touch of hardness.”
Aside from his Swissness, there was the archetypal influence of one
particular cultural icon – the tennis champ’s hero when he was growing
up was none other than Michael Jordan, the first king of Just Do It,
the man who made it look all easy and then, after the big point, just
smiled. Picture the young Swiss teen on a basketball court in Basel,
wearing the following, according to Roger: “Jeans too big, shirts too
big, and a cap, of course.” Picture him trying to be like Mike. “Jordan
for me was always the absolute superstar,” Roger says. “I’ve always
liked the way he was on the court, his whole style.”
Sadly, Roger sees tennis’s past as perhaps the best of tennis times.
Once, a long time ago, sports were about competition – or at least more
about competition. As far as the young champion can tell, this was
somewhere in the time of Bjorn Borg, whose heyday was in the early
eighties, when Roger was learning to walk. He envies the old tennis
life, the stories of players hanging out together, maybe even being
friends. “Now it’s quite individual,” he laments.
Today tennis, like most other sports, with the possible exception of
badminton, is about money, about the corporate sponsors, about the
sportsman being a marketer, with, eventually, a signature clothing
line. Witness, for example, Serena Williams’s new collection, Aneres –
Serena spelled backwards. According to Mirka, Roger is content to keep
his eye on the tennis ball and leave the fashion to fashion, for the
most part. He does relish his consulting trips to Nike. And there is
his line of colognes and men’s toiletries, a concession to fame.
Meanwhile, the recognition back home rolls in. Last year, he was named
the Swiss Person of the Year, about which he is typically modest. “I
mean, this is not something too difficult to do,” he says. “We only
have seven million people.”
Roger’s levelheadness extends to his activities off court. He has put
some of his own millions into a group called Imbewu; a nonprofit group
in New Brighton, South Africa, that helps feed and educate young people
in an area where the unemployment is nearly 80 percent. “And I hope
this will stay with me a long time, because this will go beyond my
tennis career, obviously,” he says. Imagine being 23; imagine having
yet to hone your obviously extraterrestrial skills; imagine having
possibly your best tennis years ahead of you and thinking about what
goes on after your career.
By the end of the morning, he’s so vacationed, so relaxed, that he even
begins fielding a few questions about tennis – which is a good thing if
you happen to be learning how to play in order to maybe someday win a
game against your wife.
The Beverly Hills Hotel has a tennis court, and after a while, you
persuade Roger to show you a couple of pointers. So there you are with
the world’s best tennis player, and you are ready to demonstrate your
moves.
“Show me your forehand,” he says graciously. You begin to swing, ungraciously.
“You’re coming to…under,” Roger says, putting it mildly. You understand
this. You appreciate it, as a criticism, and you want to ask more about
it, but then the waiter brings out the cordless phone.
Roger speaks to the caller, “Ja.”
Mirka eavesdrops. “Oh, that’s Arthur Cohn,” she says, speaking of the
Swiss-born filmmaker, producer of Central Station. “He is an old
friend.” Apparently Cohn has been setting up meetings for Roger all
week. Roger is still chatting, pacing excitedly. He has forgotten
tennis again, happily.
Mirka is translating, and as a result, suddenly they are ready to leave.
“We have to go see Kirk Douglas today,” she says.
And they are off for another Los Angeles celebrity match, with maybe some shopping on the side.
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