I don’t love tennis. Or at least I didn’t use to. It’s a slow sport to watch, not so exciting, full of alternate screams and without contrasts. But then Federer came, and everything changed.
I don’t know exactly when it happened, when the love has blossomed for the first time: but it was love at first sight, for sure. I owe to my mother my (little) passion for the racket, I owe her my gratitude also for having switched Sky on, that first, unspecified time on an unspecified tennis match during which a young Swiss boy was starting to teach the world to play tennis. Because, whether you want it or not, there was a tennis before Federer and a tennis after Federer. What this calm and gentle man has given to this sport can be defined in one word: elegance.
Of course, tennis has always been an elite sport, practiced by rich people of gentle manners, who approached this sport in the same polite way. But Roger is different, he exudes an innate class with which one fall in love unconditionally. Even after dozens of won Slam tournaments you still hope he wins, always. Because there’s nothing you can do, it’s so beautiful to watch him dancing on a tennis court, that only the thought that he would stop playing and winning makes you sad.
Here I praise his last Australian Open he won at the age of 35 against his historical opponent Rafael Nadal. Actually he wasn’t wearing this outfit, I’m guilty of interpretation. But personally, I see the King in white, with his beautiful logo on the edges of the Polo, forever immaculate and successful.
But tennis in the last twenty years is represented by Nadal and Serena Williams too. Warriors with amazing tenacity and resistance, provided with so much strength and explosiveness that they were often able to annihilate their opponents. With regard to Nadal, I’ve decided to pay tribute to a historical moment in his career, when he won his tenth Roland Garros after a long and (for him) difficult period in which he hadn’t been able to win that prestigious tournament on red clay.
For Williams I chose to immortalize the match she lost against Muguruza during the Wimbledon tournament in 2017, when the American tennis player wasn’t at her best physical conditions. What I noticed was the beauty of the two characters from a sport point of view, therefore I decided to portray them in a metaphorical one-on-one before the beginning of the match.
Enjoy the tennis my friends!
A dear greeting to all of you from King Roger, enjoy tennis folks š
