The New Yorker Radio Hour - Roger Federer Opens Up

Episode Date: August 23, 2019

The winner of twenty Grand Slam titles and the top-ranked men’s player for three hundred and ten weeks, Roger Federer remains a dominant force in tennis. On the eve of playing in his nineteenth U.S. Open, Federer spoke with David Remnick about how he got over the hot temper and predilection for throwing racquets that he showed early in his career. At the advanced age of thirty-eight—and as a father of young children—Federer explains what he’s had to give up in order to keep playing professionally. But he doesn’t plan to retire a day before he has to. “I think it's nice to keep on playing, and really squeeze the last drop of lemon out of it,” he tells Remnick, “and not leave the game of tennis thinking, Oh, I should have stayed longer.” Plus, the staff writer Hua Hsu on the singular career of a Chinese vocalist with global ambitions. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

From One World Trade Center in Manhattan, this is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of the New Yorker and WNYC Studios. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Roger Federer, who's getting ready to play at the U.S. Open in New York, is for my money, the greatest men's tennis player of all time. He's won 20 grand slam titles. He's spent 310 weeks ranked number one in the world, and just look at the guy. Even at 38, which is pretty old for professional tennis, he is a dominant figure. Part of his greatness resides above his shoulders. He has an unmatchable court intelligence and temperament,

which is why it was a little shocking when Federer's match against Novak Djokovic at the final at Wimbledon last month ended with a stunning and very unusual mistake. Now, I know this is not a pleasant moment or a pleasant memory for you, but the Wimbledon final in July, you've won Wimbledon eight times. That's more than any other men's player. And this year, you played in the final against Novak Djokovic, and it was an amazing match, and arguably you outplayed him. It was the longest final in Wimbledon history,

but it ended in a pretty shocking way. You had matchpoint in the fifth set, and it's got to be said you mishit the ball and just shanked it into the stands, and Jokovic goes on to win. Tell me about that moment, the ball that hits your racket, and you watch it fly off. into the stands. And you seem so contained,

but how do you describe the sense of disappointment or whatever it was after so many hours and so much effort and so much beautiful play? That's tough, it's tough, you know, just because, like you said,

I thought it was a great match, you know, I played really good, have all my chances, one more points than he did, and then to end up losing the way I did really made me more angry than anything, you know,

because I really felt like could have, should have done it. But you know, that's how it goes sometimes. You know, I'm very quick to analyze a match like this. I got over the finals very, very easily, very quickly, to be honest, because it's just part of it. So you weren't miserable to be around for the next few days after. You didn't have to avoid your kids and they didn't have to avoid you. You were okay.

Yeah, I actually slept in a camper van Monday night. So I lost Sunday. we went back all as a family on Monday we went on a camping trip so there was no avoiding the family of course I woke up Tuesday morning it is now incredibly just tired and drained still from the match and just from having a bad night's sleep in the caravan

because I have never slept in a caravan before but it was so much fun we had the best time and I'm so happy we did it but we did say that next time if we do it it may be better not to do it after a five-hour battle with Novak Djokovic in the Wimbledon finals When you're playing in a big match, are you having fun or is that too childish a word to bring to what the activity is on a big stage? I think it is fun, but I see what you're trying to say.

And I also do sense that sometimes because it's so important and to some extent so serious, it's maybe not as much fun as you think it is. But the challenge is fun. You know, having those butterflies before walking out on court is, interesting. I don't say it's fun because that's maybe something I will not miss, but yet I will miss it because it's a exhilarating feeling and it's something you don't get when you're playing video games or I don't know what, you know, it's just it comes about because the pressure is so high playing in front of a live audience and of course sometimes you play less good but all I want to do then is maybe if things are really not going well

because that just sometimes happens. It doesn't happen nearly as enough as well. I thought it would when I would be at this age. But for me, it's more about it is at least make my opponent beat me, you know, make him earn it. And then at least I can walk out and say like, okay, the other guy was better today. It wasn't maybe my day, whatever the reasons were. But yeah, fun is always there. But it comes and goes, I guess, a little bit at that level. Some fans may not know that when you were a kid, you had a pretty volcanic temper on the court and you

willed that away. When you watched John McEnroe play or now Nick Curios or somebody like that, you see them lose it on the court, how do you relate to that kind of temperament on the court, which is so alien to you? Well, I laugh about it because

I think it's actually good. It's good that guys are showing their temper. Well, I can totally relate to it because that's how I felt when I was younger. And it's nice to see it still exists. I'm also sometimes more like this. You used to smash rackets. I used to smash rackets, throw rackets, but very clever, you know, so I wouldn't break the racket.

So I would throw it into the fence or I would throw it over the fence or into the tree or I don't know what I would do, but not onto the ground where it would break. And I would have to explain myself to my parents and my sponsor maybe and ask for another racket because I smashed it. So I don't know. Look, I understand that people get upset because it happens to me still in practice nowadays. You know, when nobody's watching, I get super frustrated as well sometimes because tennis is just a sport where you're going to make mistakes. I don't care who you are. They just happen, you know.

I just didn't want to be that kind of player with that attitude because I just felt like so drained once I was like midway through a tournament. I was so tired from getting upset, from shouting, commentating every ball I missed. Or, you know, for the sake of winning, I changed my attitude. I think basically that's what I did. Athletes who have a long career change. Muhammad Ali, when he started off as a professional fighter, was just unbelievably fast.

He had the speed of a lightweight and the power of a heavyweight. Later on, he changed his tactics. He became more of a, he paced himself differently. As a tennis player and somebody who's 38, what is it that you cannot do anymore? What have you had to give up? Well, for me, it's been not sad, but a bit unfortunate that I had to give up, you know, in my spare time, going to do other sports.

You know, when I was younger, I remember I used to go play squash with my friends for hours after a game, or I would go play ping pong even before a match, or I used to go skiing, you know, after the Australian open back in Switzerland, and all of a sudden you're like, well, maybe I should stop that just because I don't want to end my career that way, I don't want to break my knee, or, and then you give it up, And actually you realize, well, I can find something else that's a lot of fun. You organize your life differently. All of a sudden, you have children.

So instead of going, I don't know, where are going to play squash, well, now you maybe go run around in the park and play hide-and-seek and play catch, you know. So I don't know, it becomes a totally different life that you're living. But, yeah, I mean, I do miss, you know, the years where I was a teenager too, and I just did anything just because I could. And I was still trying to understand what does professionalism really mean. I notice sometimes at a tournament you'll drop a set and pretty decisively in the very beginning. You're almost getting warmed up and you start to think, well, maybe the difference between Federer and this other guy is playing is not so significant.

And then the tide just completely turns, which leads me to think that maybe the biggest difference between somebody who's at your level or Djokovic's level or Nadal's. And then the next layer down is more mental than physical. Do you see that that's the case? Not so much to be honest. I think actually margins are much slimmer than people think they are. If you win 53% or 55% of the points, you are winning the match and actually dominating if you're winning 55 or 60% of the points played.

And if I'd asked you now, how much do you think I win of all the points played? You would think maybe 70% if you're winning 64-6-6-3, but actually it's much less than that. And I think what you want to try to create as a player is that you're not playing at the limit of things, that your base is so high that you can always rely on it and that you have several strength in your game, that if one also goes away, that you still can absorb it with a different shot, let's say. And I think that's what separates the absolute great and the best of our game to the other players,

is that we can rely on several things to keep us alive in a match. What drives your obsession for tennis right now? Is it records? Do you need the thrill of winning a tournament over and over again? Is it money? What is it? Yeah, I mean, sometimes the motivation can be records. Sometimes it is beating the new generation.

Sometimes it is proving to myself that I can do it again. And I mean, just in my heart, I just like playing tennis, you know. It may be practice or matches. I like being out there, you know, and as long as I'm really enjoying myself and I feel that way, I think it's nice to keep on playing and sort of really squeezing that last drop of lemon out of it, you know, and not leaving the game of tennis feeling like, I could have, I should have stayed longer, you know, on the tour because, you know, I feel like I missed out. Now, when you're playing, you've got a life of activity and busyness and, and upheaval and attention.

and press and all the rest. And then when you stop, you stop. When you think ahead to that point, whatever it is, when you're 40, when you're 45, God knows, what will life be like? And are you looking forward to that? It will be different. It will be different for sure. You know, I don't think I will have a major struggle being away from the game of tennis

that I love so much because I feel like I was able to keep a really. really great friendships throughout my career. So I think that's going to catch me in a nice way, coming back to a more normal life, a more structured life. You know, I think I'd be, you know, in business in some shape or form. I hope to be in tennis also.

Just at least a little bit, I could see myself in a mentoring role. I don't see myself commentating or coaching per se, but, you know, helping and giving tips and advice. Totally I can see that. philanthropy, of course, my foundation is super important to me, so I know I will be doing that in the future. And I know I will be living in Switzerland. My home, where all my friends are, I love my country so much.

Now, David Foster Wallace, who we remember best as a novelist, also wrote a lot about tennis, and he was a big tennis player, and he was a fan of yours. And that's putting it lightly. In a piece in The New York Times, he said that watching you play tennis was like a religious experience, and that on the court that you looked like, and I'm quoting here, a creature whose body is both flesh and somehow light. How do you respond when somebody writes something like that about you?

Is it thrilling or embarrassing or what? Yeah, it's a bit embarrassing. I remember the interview with him, and I walked away from the interview thinking like, oh, I don't know if this piece is going to be a most incredible piece or the worst piece. It was really hard to tell, you know, and he wrote this most unbelievable piece about me

that almost got me definitely a bit embarrassed, you know, because at the end of day I'm just a tennis player, you know, but I know that tennis in the theater sort of feeling we have, you know, we can hear a pin drop. It can be quite a magical sort of feeling, you know, for somebody who's not a tennis player, and even for us, it's a great reminder sometimes playing this great arenas around the world, what people think and feel watching sports,

and I get it too, because I'm also a sports fan, I also watch it, and I get maybe more nervous watching other sports, and actually playing it myself. You're coming to New York to play in the U.S. Open very soon, and the difference between the atmosphere at, I don't know, strawberries and cream Wimbledon and a beer and a hot dog U.S. Open is pretty different. Sometimes it seems like the difference between, I don't know, a church service and, you know, feeding time at the zoo.

How do you adjust to that? Is one place preferable to you? Well, I think the church is more consistent, let's put it that way. But I love playing there. I love playing in New York. Crowds who have been always terrific with me, and I can't wait to come back this year. Well, I look forward to it, Roger, and thank you so much. It's my pleasure. Thank you, David. I hope I see you there.

Roger Federer is playing in his 19th U.S. Open this week. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Stick around. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, and before we go, we've got one more thing to do today. Staff writer Huasu covers music from a particularly wide perspective. He's written about everything from his first memories of hearing, George Michael in Taiwan to the use of classical harps in pop music. So I've come to expect the unexpected from Hua, but I've never heard anything quite like what he played for me recently.

Songs from about 50 years ago by a vocalist named Stephen Chang. So Stephen Chang recorded a single in the late 60s for Jamaican record label. It had the sort of typical rock city style, you know, like the low-bing bass line, and the sort of guitarist cranking out this skank rhythm. But what was weird about it is that he was singing in Mandarin. So always together is the track that a lot of, if you know who he is, you probably know him because of this song. And for years, collectors knew about this song.

It was just this mystery as to who this guy was. You know, Jamaica does have this robust Chinese-Jamaican population. People assume that he had come from that population. So I just became really curious about this song. So who is Steve Chang? He's from Shanghai, born in the 20s, to a well-to-do family. How did he get involved in music? So he left China, went to Hawaii, where he had some family,

and then eventually ended up in New York City. And there he became really interested in performance. He did theater, perform music. And eventually he became fascinating with this idea that he could invent this new style of music. Chinese folk rock is what he called it. In what period is that? This was in the late 60s and early 70s.

So he'd already toured quite a bit throughout Trindat and Tobago, Jamaica. He was actually quite a big star there, particularly among the Chinese immigrant communities. He thought that maybe the style of Chinese operatic singing that he was bringing would be annoying to people. You know, he acknowledged that, but that's just sort of what he wanted to do. He wanted to bring these two different musical approaches into conversation. Where was this music produced? Tell me a little bit about the background of it. So this song came about because Steve was this performer.

He played a lot of like hotel lounge shows. Wherever there were Chinese immigrants, he would have a gig. And he ended up in Jamaica, the Chinese Benevolent Association brought him out. And he linked up with Byron Lee, this famous Chinese Jamaican musician. And together they recorded this track. Now, how did you first hear about him? after Always Together got on my radar, I'd been curating this show at the Museum of Chinese in America, we found Stephen Chang's children, and they told us about this band. And his children had no idea about Always Together. It was the YouTube algorithm that served it to them. On the sidebar, one of his kids noticed, like, Stephen Chang, Always Together, Rocksteady. He clicked on it, and he's like, that's my dad. They had no idea. They had no idea. They knew he had gone to Jamaica. He'd spent time there.

They're maybe even collaborated with local musicians, but they didn't know he'd ever cut a rock city single. Clicking around on YouTube, all of a sudden you discover you that your dad was a rock star of some dimension? That's pretty cool. Well, let's listen to Butterfly Love is one of his signature love songs. Tell me your reaction, your first time you heard that. Maybe it just, I just couldn't help but hear, you know, the imperfections,

the accent. And there's some, like, tense slippages. And yet he sounds so kind of confident and sincere. And sincere and brave as he's doing it. I mean, things where he just sings kind of louder and louder and with more and more gusto. It's incredibly corny, but it kind of makes you happy. Yeah, he just sings with a kind of zeal. It's so over the top.

And all of his music has this interesting depth of meaning because he's often trying to translate into English. Sometimes he's singing Chinese stories, Chinese figures, Chinese archetypes into this English song style. Like the Chinese Romeo and Juliet is the story of the butterfly lovers. What's the tongue roll about? That's the key move there. I think that's just a Stephen Chang signature move right there.

Music of the late Stephen Chang. He died in 2012. And you can find Hua Su's article about Chang at New Yorker.com. I'm David Remnick. Thanks for listening to The New Yorker Radio Hour today. Have a great week. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Yards with additional music by Alexis Quadrado. Our team includes Alex Barron, Emily Boutin, Ave Carrillo, Riannon, Gerein-Corpi, Jil Duboff, Karen Frillman, Karen Frillin, Calaliyah, David Krasnow, Caroline Lester, Louis Mitchell, and Stephen Valentino,

with help from Mung Faye Chen and Emily Mann. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Turina Endowment Fund.