Richard Pagliaro | @Tennis_Now | Saturday, September 23, 2024
Surround sound came to Rogers Arena.
Fans wrapped Roger Federer with a roaring welcoming embrace as he walked out to conduct the coin toss before Laver Cup doubles on Friday night.
More: Federer Addresses United Nations
Halep on Doping Ban: It’s Insane
The 42-year-old Federer felt the love and shared an update with fans on life after tennis and his future plans in a post-match interview with Hall of Famer Jim Courier.
These days the driving force behind Laver Cup is a driver.
At home in Switzerland, Federer drives his two sets of twins—daughters Charlene Riva and Myla Rose and sons Lenny and Leo—to their tennis lessons (all four Federer kids play with two-handed backhands unlike their famous father and former WTA pro mom Mirka) and various activities.
“I’m a professional driver nowadays and an organizer and a logistics man,” a smiling Federer said of his dad duties. “It’s definitely a test on a complete other level.
“It’s a really intense beautiful life that I’m living right now with the children and Mirka were having the best time really. A lot of things going on. I feel like I’m finally controlling my schedule now.”
Though Federer confessed his kids often blow off his tennis coaching advice—”I’m not the coach, I am the dad, and the dad’s advice, as we know, only goes so far,” Federer told CNN— the children sometimes serve as coaches for their parents. Federer related how his daughter, Myla, convinced him to join buddy Chris Martin and his band Coldplay on stage at a London show before his return to Wimbledon last summer.
“Chris Martin writes me and says ‘Do you want to help us perform one of the songs?’ ” Federer said. “I was sitting at dinner and read the message to my wife, and two daughters and some friends and they were like ‘Oh my God, you’ve got to do it!’
“Myla, my daughter looks at me and goes ‘Papa, Go! You only live once…So I finished my music career on top because I just retired from music as well.”
Reflecting on his poignant parting from tennis at the 2022 Laver Cup in London where he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with rival Rafa Nadal in a tearful Fedal farewell, the Swiss Maestro said it was perfect ending to a storied career.
“It’s great to be back at the Laver Cup one year later and if I look back at the memories, I thought the farewell was beautiful, it was perfect, it was emotional, there was proper suffering going on throughout my talk with you,”…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Blog RSS…