Otacon
Hall of Fame
EPISODE 1. Where we learn why we must pronounce "Rodger" and not "Rogé" ...
The French journalist Thomas Sotto has always had an admiration close to devotion for Roger Federer. From this passion, he wrote a moving and very personal book, which will come out on May 16th. An adventure named Federer is not a biography, but a puzzle where one discovers the different facets of the man and the champion. I've chosen to translate some excerpts, those that evoke Fed's personal life.
[...] We are in the mid-1970s. Robert Federer, from St. Gaal, Switzerland, works for a large pharmaceutical company in Basel. His employer offered him the opportunity to live for some time in South Africa. Proposal accepted. Robert does not know it yet but this professional choice will weigh on the history of tennis.
Aftter arriving in Johannesburg, he meets Lynette. A beginning of a love story that could have been without a future, Robert was due to return home. But very enamored of his beautiful South African woman, he will return to bring her to Switzerland. From their union will be born two children. A little girl, first: Diana. And then a boy, Roger, twenty months later, on August 8, 1981, in Basel. Lynette naturally chooses the first name in the pronunciation of her native language, Roger. The subject has long annoyed the player.
During his first tournaments, he does not stand that we pronounce his name the French way. A subject on which he had the opportunity to make his point in the early 2000s in Tennis Magazine. And obviously, at that time, this pronunciation story had the knack of annoying him: "I explained a thousand times to the press that it was Roger. If people do not understand it, I can do nothing about it, I won't lose my energy with that. " Ever since, listening to the roaring "Rogers" in the stands, the lesson has been well learnt...
Behind this Anglo-Saxon pronunciation lies a visceral attachment of the Swiss to the land of his mother. South Africa, he loves it for its beauty, its atmosphere, its charm, its smells. (He's got a South African passport). Everything seems to please him there and bring him closer to Lynette's roots. From his family today almost entirely gone. The evocation of his South African ancestors makes appear in the look of the player a glimmer of nostalgia, say those who know him well: "My heart is linked to South Africa", says the one often nicknamed sometimes "big brother Roger" over there.
His parents are a model of stable and faithful union. She is a prof. He, a small entrepreneur. "There is love in this family", summarizes very simply his friend Mansour Barhami [The Iranian tennis player]. But do not go and look for Lynette and Robert side by side in the players' box during the big tournaments. They avoid sitting next to each other. A way to fight their stress (or at least not to communicate it).
From Robert, Roger has inherited a certain capacity to be happy, a kind of aptitude for happiness: "He is like Roger: he is a man always happy, who always has a smile, a happy man", entrusts me former champion Fabrice Santoro. We will talk later about one of the (rare) confidences of his wife, Mirka. As for Lynette, she is, it seems, a very committed fan. And she shows it particularly when she watches her son play on TV. "Ace Rodger! Ace!" she lets go whenever he is about to serve. Like an incantation. As an obedient child, it is not uncommon for her son to deliver.
[...] Very early on, the little Roger develops a pronounced taste for ... football! At eight, he is already wearing the FC Basel jersey. At school, his first results are less brilliant. Yet his parents do everything to help him. Robert takes care of the math tutoring classes. Lynette focuses on languages. With the exception of French that she does not speak. A work that enables sharpening the ear of her son. And that probably explains in part why he is able today to start a sentence in German, to pursue it in English to finish it in French ...
But very quickly, he'll fall in love with tennis. It is in this "discipline" alone that he aims to become the top of the class. And, in fact, the results showed up in no time. At 11, he is already among the top three juniors in Switzerland. It was at this time that Mansour Bahrami ran into him on a court for the first time. "It was Roger himself who told me, years later," recalls the mustached Iranian player.
"It was in 1992. I had to play against Jimmy Connors at the Basel tournament, to entertain the crowd, we exchanged some shots with a ball boy. This diligent kid was Roger! Of course, I didn't remember it, but he always kept the picture of that moment, which he gave me. By the way, Mansour was then one of Roger's idols: "One day, my son was watching a sports show on French TV, and the show was portraying the young Swiss, already a very promising hopeful of the sport. "Dad look! he has your poster on the wall of his room!" exclaimed my son," I admit I was quite proud of it ... " says Mansour.
[...] In August 1991, the one who is not yet a living god participates in his first "official" tournament. He is 10 years old. The competition is played on the clay courts of a club in the suburbs of Basel. Bad luck for him, children of his age category are lacking. Here is our little Roger "transferred" to the tournament of the older age category. His opponent in the first round is 13 years old. Three more: the gap is too big; the matchup unbalanced; and the final score ruthless, since Roger suffers a double bagel.
"He was a little angry, a little upset," recalls Reto Schmidli. Even if it's break-in, he's kind of made tennis history. Since he remains, to this day, the only player to have double bageled Roger Federer. The former fortieth Swiss player will have been his first - and worst - tennis nightmare.
"Of that, yes, I'm a little proud," admits the one who has never replayed against his victim thereafter. "So I'm unbeaten against the master," he laughs. Despite this unparalleled achievement, he left the shorts and sneakers to put the police uniform on in Basel. If, today, Reto Schmidli says he is ready for a revenge, he remains nevertheless joyfully clear-headed: "Yes, I knew furtively the secret to beat him, but I do not have it anymore ..."
EPISODE 2 TOMORROW !
The French journalist Thomas Sotto has always had an admiration close to devotion for Roger Federer. From this passion, he wrote a moving and very personal book, which will come out on May 16th. An adventure named Federer is not a biography, but a puzzle where one discovers the different facets of the man and the champion. I've chosen to translate some excerpts, those that evoke Fed's personal life.
[...] We are in the mid-1970s. Robert Federer, from St. Gaal, Switzerland, works for a large pharmaceutical company in Basel. His employer offered him the opportunity to live for some time in South Africa. Proposal accepted. Robert does not know it yet but this professional choice will weigh on the history of tennis.
Aftter arriving in Johannesburg, he meets Lynette. A beginning of a love story that could have been without a future, Robert was due to return home. But very enamored of his beautiful South African woman, he will return to bring her to Switzerland. From their union will be born two children. A little girl, first: Diana. And then a boy, Roger, twenty months later, on August 8, 1981, in Basel. Lynette naturally chooses the first name in the pronunciation of her native language, Roger. The subject has long annoyed the player.
During his first tournaments, he does not stand that we pronounce his name the French way. A subject on which he had the opportunity to make his point in the early 2000s in Tennis Magazine. And obviously, at that time, this pronunciation story had the knack of annoying him: "I explained a thousand times to the press that it was Roger. If people do not understand it, I can do nothing about it, I won't lose my energy with that. " Ever since, listening to the roaring "Rogers" in the stands, the lesson has been well learnt...
Behind this Anglo-Saxon pronunciation lies a visceral attachment of the Swiss to the land of his mother. South Africa, he loves it for its beauty, its atmosphere, its charm, its smells. (He's got a South African passport). Everything seems to please him there and bring him closer to Lynette's roots. From his family today almost entirely gone. The evocation of his South African ancestors makes appear in the look of the player a glimmer of nostalgia, say those who know him well: "My heart is linked to South Africa", says the one often nicknamed sometimes "big brother Roger" over there.
His parents are a model of stable and faithful union. She is a prof. He, a small entrepreneur. "There is love in this family", summarizes very simply his friend Mansour Barhami [The Iranian tennis player]. But do not go and look for Lynette and Robert side by side in the players' box during the big tournaments. They avoid sitting next to each other. A way to fight their stress (or at least not to communicate it).
From Robert, Roger has inherited a certain capacity to be happy, a kind of aptitude for happiness: "He is like Roger: he is a man always happy, who always has a smile, a happy man", entrusts me former champion Fabrice Santoro. We will talk later about one of the (rare) confidences of his wife, Mirka. As for Lynette, she is, it seems, a very committed fan. And she shows it particularly when she watches her son play on TV. "Ace Rodger! Ace!" she lets go whenever he is about to serve. Like an incantation. As an obedient child, it is not uncommon for her son to deliver.
[...] Very early on, the little Roger develops a pronounced taste for ... football! At eight, he is already wearing the FC Basel jersey. At school, his first results are less brilliant. Yet his parents do everything to help him. Robert takes care of the math tutoring classes. Lynette focuses on languages. With the exception of French that she does not speak. A work that enables sharpening the ear of her son. And that probably explains in part why he is able today to start a sentence in German, to pursue it in English to finish it in French ...
But very quickly, he'll fall in love with tennis. It is in this "discipline" alone that he aims to become the top of the class. And, in fact, the results showed up in no time. At 11, he is already among the top three juniors in Switzerland. It was at this time that Mansour Bahrami ran into him on a court for the first time. "It was Roger himself who told me, years later," recalls the mustached Iranian player.
"It was in 1992. I had to play against Jimmy Connors at the Basel tournament, to entertain the crowd, we exchanged some shots with a ball boy. This diligent kid was Roger! Of course, I didn't remember it, but he always kept the picture of that moment, which he gave me. By the way, Mansour was then one of Roger's idols: "One day, my son was watching a sports show on French TV, and the show was portraying the young Swiss, already a very promising hopeful of the sport. "Dad look! he has your poster on the wall of his room!" exclaimed my son," I admit I was quite proud of it ... " says Mansour.
[...] In August 1991, the one who is not yet a living god participates in his first "official" tournament. He is 10 years old. The competition is played on the clay courts of a club in the suburbs of Basel. Bad luck for him, children of his age category are lacking. Here is our little Roger "transferred" to the tournament of the older age category. His opponent in the first round is 13 years old. Three more: the gap is too big; the matchup unbalanced; and the final score ruthless, since Roger suffers a double bagel.
"He was a little angry, a little upset," recalls Reto Schmidli. Even if it's break-in, he's kind of made tennis history. Since he remains, to this day, the only player to have double bageled Roger Federer. The former fortieth Swiss player will have been his first - and worst - tennis nightmare.
"Of that, yes, I'm a little proud," admits the one who has never replayed against his victim thereafter. "So I'm unbeaten against the master," he laughs. Despite this unparalleled achievement, he left the shorts and sneakers to put the police uniform on in Basel. If, today, Reto Schmidli says he is ready for a revenge, he remains nevertheless joyfully clear-headed: "Yes, I knew furtively the secret to beat him, but I do not have it anymore ..."
EPISODE 2 TOMORROW !
