A few years back, or was it a decade ago, I had fun making up what would the title be of Roger Federer’s post-retirement book. That was after another tennis great, Andre Agassi, came up with his book that revealed, among other things, he used pins to keep his then famous mane in place.
My choice for Roger’s book? What to do after you win 20 slams. Of course, Roger had even yet to break Pete Sampras record but look at him now. He was to face Marin Cilic for his 20th slam as I write this.
Here’s a curious tidbit. Cilic was yet to break into the junior circuit when Roger won his first grand slam in 2003. How about that?
His longevity is nothing short of amazing, given how his contemporaries in the Big Four—Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray—are dealing with injuries at the “ripe old” age of 30. Roger is nearer to 40 than 30, yet his dispatching guys who grew up worshiping him as if he’s still in his mid-20s.
Can he do it? Win 20? No doubt about it. We have three other slams this year and last year, Roger won two. At the start of the tennis season last year, nobody expected that both Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal would make the final but the first major ushered in an epic season for both as they split the four slams.
By the way, I got curious with what Al Mendoza pointed out, on why tennis players carry their own bags and don’t have an equivalent of a caddy. Well, the main reason is that these players carry their own stuff because they don’t want anyone else to hold their bags and get a chance to mess things around.
I mean, look at Rafa Nadal, if his water bottles have to be aligned a certain way on court, I guess that means the things in his bag have to be in a certain order too.
I learned that Roger carry at least nine racquets, his other bag is for his clothes, and the nine racquets have varying tensions. He’s had the same guy stringing his racquets since 2004, and all of his racquets are strung just hours before the game.
In a single year, Roger would use as many as 50 racquests, which are all donated to charity of course.