Roger Federer is the first Swiss man to win Wimbledon. He is also the first Swiss man to say ‘thank youâ€, to smile, and to have a pretty girlfriend.
The chocolate tycoons of Geneva are lining up to use him as their poster boy.
Well, they would be if he didn’t have that ponytail. For wealth and stability Switzerland pays a cruel price in fashion, being eternally on the cusp of the 1983 winter season.
Despite his Wimbledon triumph Federer has kept a low profile and remains something of a mystery.
Does he use conditioner on hisponytail to get that bounce and body? Can he yodel? We just don’t know. But perhaps the most important question is this: how on earth did he get to the pinnacle of tennis without a tennis-playing brother to drive him to new heights of skill?
Papa Williams, the ringmaster patriarch responsible for Venus and Serena, has convinced us that like Sonny and Cher, his gals just aren’t the same when they’re apart.
Doe-eyed, knock-kneed Venus needs the odd whuppin’ by her ripped younger sis’, and Serena — packing all the grace and finesse of a cluster-bomb — benefits in turn by being reminded that power isn’t everything.
That’s the theory. Of course, as anyone who has ever seen carpet-bombing in action knows, power is everything, especially when your opponent has her abs strapped up for dear life.
Younger sis’ thumped older sis’, and then tied a knot in a steel bar because she was still feeling a little punchy. These three-setters just don’t satisfy a girl like they used to.
So what happens now in Chez Williams? Has Venus been grounded? ‘And you’ll stay up there until you beat your sister in a grand slam event!†Slam.
One can only imagine the little notes written on Hello Kitty stationery, left under Venus’s pillow: ‘Dere Venus, ah’m bedder n you. Ah wurn Wimbldin. You didn’t. Ha ha ha ha. XXX, S.†Tears and tantrums, Fruit Loops flicked at each other over the table until Papa Williams reaches for his lungeing-rein—
But at least Venus is still, at very least, the second-best player in the world. Her time will come. Consider then the awful position of being an untalented sibling, one nevertheless intent on becoming a star. Is there a third Williams sister, Afrodite, chained to a boiler somewhere in the house, howling for her tennis racquet as her inch-thick bifocals steam up?
Of course, we only hear about the successful sporting siblings. There is a third Waugh in Australia who averages around 15 in backyard Tests with a plank and Slazball. At last sighting he bore a resemblance to Steven and Mark, but that was before he was bricked up in a cellar for the sake of cricketing symmetry.
Likewise it is possible that there was a third Pollock brother in the 1960s, puny of limb and blind as a mole, who was sold to travelling gypsies when he insisted on holding a bat upside down.
Ralf Schumacher has started winning grands prix, but he has surely reconciled himself to the fact that he will never be as good as Michael.
Somehow one imagines that earning the gross domestic product of sub-Saharan Africa every month has softened the blow.
The difference between a zillion bucks and a billion bucks is only truly understood by lawyers and mathematicians anyway: you can’t spend either amount, so why let brotherly rivalry sour a nice fraternal dip in the Lear jet’s hot tub?
Still, there must be nights when Ralf writhes about under his racingcar-motif duvet, dreaming about being trapped behind the wheel of a donkey cart as Michael fishtails over the horizon in a Ferrari spewing wads of cash out of the exhaust.
Which brings us back to the future of Roger, trying to jam his winner’s tray into a safety deposit box in Zurich. Sure, he has a glorious cross-court backhand, and yes, he has his temper under control, but if he wants to stay on top of the pile he needs to find a sibling fast. Maybe Martina Hingis. The Swiss are all related anyway.
Of course, Martina’s mother ship might come for her any day, drawn towards our solar system by the huge radio impulses pumped out of the dome behind her monstrous forehead. Roger had best make hay.