If
he is fresh at an age when other champions have long gone stale, it is
in part because he has made a concerted attempt to keep his approach
fresh even if not every interested party likes the consequences.
Davis Cup? Been there, finally won that. Sign him out.
India? Istanbul? Never played there. Sign him up.
“The
thing is I’ve been traveling for 20 years now, right?” he said last
week. “I’ve had the chance to go to visit so many places over the years
that I feel like at the back end, you’ve got to catch the places you’ve
never been to.”
New York - where he will face Grigor Dimitrov in the BNP Paribas
Showdown on Tuesday - hardly qualifies as a new destination. He has won
five United States Opens in the city and knows its upscale sections
well. He has navigated them most recently with his four children in tow,
although they will remain in California this week as he makes the quick
trip to New York before returning to play in Indian Wells, riding the
momentum of beating Novak Djokovic in the Dubai final on Feb. 28.
That
victory felt all the better to Federer after his surprise loss in the
third round of the Australian Open to the Italian veteran Andreas Seppi.
“I
was playing good, committed tennis again, which I wasn’t able to do in
Australia against Seppi, for some reason,” said Federer, who served and
attacked Djokovic effectively on the fast, outdoor hardcourt.
Tennis
remains a family game, but Federer, the winner of a record 17 Grand
Slam singles titles and still No. 2 in the rankings, is taking it to new
levels on tour since the birth of his twins Leo and Lenny last year.
His identical twin daughters, Charlene and Myla, will turn 6 in July.
“This
trip was particularly brutal, because coming from Dubai was a 12-hour
time change,” Federer said. “So the first night was unbelievable. One of
my daughters slept from 8 to 12 and then didn’t sleep from midnight all
the way through, and I was like, I can’t believe it.”
The
traveling Federers manage it all with the help of several nannies. “We
have a few just to make sure they don’t overwork as well and that we
have a good vibe,” Federer said.
They
also manage it now that Charlene and Myla are of school age, with the
help of a kindergarten teacher who accompanies Federer and his wife,
Mirka, on the road and instructs the girls most mornings in hotel rooms
or other spaces converted into classrooms.
Federer
said that the kindergarten teacher had a degree for teaching primary
school and that the plan was for the girls to begin the equivalent of
first grade on the road later in the year.
“It
seems like the right thing to do, so we can all stay together,” Federer
said. “I wasn’t sure if that was what I really wanted for the kids at
the beginning, but I must say it keeps us together.
“The
girls enjoy it, and I love being with my family, and so does Mirka. She
loves being with me, so we get to see each other every single day,
basically, and I think that’s more important than being apart from each
other and them going to normal school at the moment. But things can
change very quickly.”
Federer has not yet been called into class for show and tell.
“No, no, no,” he said, laughing. “But I like to take a peek sometimes, just to see how it’s going.”
Clearly,
the new experiences are not restricted to the tennis court at this
stage of Federer’s life, but the game itself remains a reliable source
even if a court remains a rectangle with a net no matter what the time
zone.
He
played in India in December (for a seven-figure sum) as part of the
inaugural International Premier Tennis League. And though he is skipping
the Masters 1000 event in Miami this year because he wants to take an
extended block of time for training, he has agreed to play in the new
ATP Tour event in Istanbul, which will be held on clay from April 27 to
May 3.
The
appearance fee should again be lucrative, but Federer said that was not
his primary motivation. He can earn such fees just about anywhere in
the world.
“I
had a lot of Turkish people in my class and in my football club when I
grew up,” he said of his childhood in Basel, Switzerland. “I remember we
had Turkey once as a subject in school. I was very intrigued and
interested always by this country. And then when it came on the
calendar, I saw when it was, and I was like: I can adjust my schedule
accordingly. I can make this work, because I’d love to go there.
“I’ve heard so many great things about the city, like East meets West, Europe meets Asia, and all that stuff.”
Africa
remains high on Federer’s wish list, and he said he had been seriously
exploring the idea of an African exhibition tour - similar to the one he
conducted in South American in 2012 - until his wife became pregnant
with Leo and Lenny.
“I don’t know if I can still make it while I’m active,” Federer said. “But it still clearly would be great.”
Federer’s
border-hopping curiosity did not extend to Liege, Belgium, where the
Swiss team faced the host country without him last weekend in the first
round of the Davis Cup.
In
November, Federer played through back problems to clinch Switzerland’s
first Davis Cup title and win one of the last remaining major trophies
that he lacked.
He
and Stan Wawrinka won on the road against the French in Lille on indoor
clay with a record crowd of more than 27,000 in attendance. Federer
said he was happy to have avoided his first painkilling injection.
“I
was just praying I didn’t have to take it, and in the end I didn’t,
which I was very relieved about,” he said. “I never had to take a shot
in my life.”
But defending the title was never part of his plan, Federer said.
“The
idea was to try to win it, hopefully, one time in my career,” he said.
“That was the goal when I was 17, and it took me so long to do it, and
maybe the joy was even bigger. I think you could see that.”
He
and Wawrinka both declined to play in Liege, and the Swiss captain,
Severin Luethi, who is also Federer’s coach, had to face Belgium with no
player ranked in the top 300. The Swiss fell by the surprisingly close
score of 3-2 on Sunday but lost just the same.
Federer has made no definitive announcement but is uncertain if he will play Davis Cup again.
“I
think actually, in Switzerland, most of the people understand that I
don’t play, because they feel that I deserve to not play after all these
years,” he said. “I’ve put in a lot of effort, and I must say after the
high in Lille with 27,000 people, is it ever going to be better than
that? Maybe you want your last Davis Cup memory to be that and not
somewhere else?”
What
is clear is that Federer wants to make many more tennis memories
elsewhere. Novelty is a big factor, but tradition still has its place.
Ask him what experience he most wishes to have this year, and he does
not mention visiting the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul.
“The big goal, if I could choose, would be to win Wimbledon,” he said. “And I guess in a dream world, become world No. 1 again.”
Date: 9th March 2015, Source: The New York Times
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