I hope randomwalker72 won't mind me copying this from the beeb and pasting it here. Absolutely brilliant. randomwalker! :ok:


The Secret Diary of Roger Federer, aged 25 years and 7/6ths
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Message 1 - posted by randomwalker72 (U1664095) , 5 Hours Ago

You've seen him play and read the interviews, now get the inside scoop. Selected excerpts follow:

Monday 11 September 2006

Aaah…what a great day yesterday! I am so glad my new friend Tiger Woods managed to come and see me beat Andy, I was worried he would not make it, and that we would have to rearrange for next year’s final. Mirka was very happy too – and she allowed me to stay up late and sleep in. As we got into bed she said, beaming, “Roger dear, what does it feel like to sleep with the girlfriend of the three time US Open winner?” I didn’t know what to say to that …

I still don’t know what to say, but it doesn’t matter, as now we come to the serious bit of our stay in New York where we have to meet sponsors, go to functions, and above all get Mirka’s shopping done. “You’ve had your fun playing tennis for two weeks now Roger, this is where the hard work begins’, Mirka reminded me.

Tuesday 12 September 2006.

Mirka reminded me that I have to speak to Terry Jones about the film he is planning to make, “Life of Roger”. I am excited about this. They have got Jim Courrier as one of the wise men. My mother has been very keenly practicing her special line “He’s not the future of tennis, he’s a very naughty boy”. My favourite line is when I get to tell the Bollitieri academy “You are all individuals”! I asked my good friend Tim Henman if he would take part, but he said no. He smiled and said “I imagine the crucifixion scene will be on centre court in Roland Garros, with Rafael Nadal, right? In that case, I’ve got a song for you, it goes ‘Always stay on the baseline in life .. de dum, de dum, de dum de dum de dum’”. This is his famous British humour, which Mirka says is very funny but which I do not always find easy to understand.

Thursday 14 September.

Went to a Vogue fashion show today! Fashion is just great, though somehow Mirka is not letting me get fully into it. On the way back in the car she asked me if I had decided whether to play doubles with Rafa. I said I preferred to play mixed doubles with Maria Sharapova, Elena Dementieva or Martina Hingis. This must have been the wrong thing to say as the temperature dropped about 150 degrees, and there was about a 20 minute silence before she said very quietly that I would do no such thing. She clearly does not like me hanging out with the other tennis girls – I imagine she thinks it has a bad effect on my game. I remember she didn’t let Martina sit in my box in the Aus Open 2004 final.

Friday 22 September

In Geneva for the Davis Cup! I walked in to train, and immediately Stan, Marco and Yves got on their knees, chanting “We’re not worthy, we’re not worthy”. This was nice, but after 15 minutes I got them to stop and focus on the game. Mirka had prepared the game plan for the tie, which I gave to Severin Luthi, our captain. I told the others that the plan is for me to get three points, and that it would be a miracle if they got any too. They were happy with that. Yves is not happy with playing in Geneva – not enough atmosphere. “They all have grape juice in their veins here”. Yves is from the Valais part of Switzerland, and thinks Geneva is a foreign country, especially as they voted against the swiss army in 1989. Yves thinks all true men have to do military service – I had to remind him that I didn’t because I have a weak back. “Are you sure they didn’t let you off because of you weak backhand”, he snorted, before heading off to hit some balls.

Sunday 24 September

Well, I thrashed Serbia and Montenegro. I saw that my new friend Tiger Woods did not do so well in the Ryder cup, so I phoned him to remind him that I had done better than him in team events this weekend. For some reason he didn’t seem very keen to talk, and I heard him muttering something to Elin about having a word with Nike. He excused himself saying that he suddenly had news that a relative was very ill, and could not talk, so I couldn’t remind him to start working on his arrangements for New York next year.


Tuesday 3 October

We are in Japan! I have always wanted to visit Japan, and this is a trip I will enjoy. This is a really nice holiday for me. I have a bit of tennis during the day, but that should not stop me from seeing Tokyo. Tonight I had dinner with my good friend Tim Henman and also with Stefan Koubek. Tim was paying this time. He asked me whether I had any plans for Takao Suzuki, my next opponent, a local favourite. “He is fast player, you will need to nip him in the bud” he said, with that funny smile he gives when he tells a joke. “Nip..?”, I asked. “Never mind, Roger, never mind”, he added, grinning to himself.

Wednesday 4 October

What a terrible dream I had!! I was dreaming that I was sitting in my throne as King Roger, when these terrible creatures – they look like they belong in Lord of the rings – came up to me and said, “ Away with you, you fraud, you transitional number 1”. Another shrieked “So, you think you are the GOAT eh…we’ll show you what it takes to be the GOAT”. At this point someone waved a wand, and soon my hair was starting to get darker and more curly. My tongue started to hang out and my shoulders slumped. My racquet shrank into a Wilson ProStaff Original; I saw long letters from Bridget Wilson appear in my sports bag, and soon George Bastl was there jumping up and down. This was too much – I woke up screaming. I told Mirka what happened, and she said “don’t be silly Roger, get back to sleep, you’ve obviously taken too much Sake”

Saturday 7 October

I will play my good friend Tim in the final! I had an idea, and told Mirka that, seeing that Tim would soon retire, it might be good if he won a tournament. “I see …” said Mirka, as the low level gamma rays came on in her eyes , “ and just what do you have in mind?”. I said, “well, you know, I though maybe I would let him win in three…”. At this point the gamma rays jumped up ten levels and I was unable to continue. “Roger …look at me…ROGER ….you-will-go-and-win-this-game-is-that-understood”. It is a pity, as I think Tim would have liked it …

Monday 9 October

A long flight back from Tokyo to Europe. In the lounge Mirka got into a heated argument with a man who lives in the US, but is originally from India. It all started when she remarked casually that flying could be tedious, but that at least airline companies were so much better than in the past. The other man took grave offence at this, saying he had been following the airline industry for 20 years now, and that this was without doubt the weakest era in the history of the industry. Mirka said that technology had improved, and that the depth of participants was better than ever. “Not so!”, he responded. “Back then you had a variety of styles. Now it is just the same. Everybody is in an alliance with each other, the food, the films, all the same everywhere. Back then you had a true style of service-trolley; now you only get standard, baseline fare”
At this point I interrupted to say that sometimes I managed to fly with good friend Tim Henman on his private jet, at which point Mirka shouted, “Shut up about your good friend Tim, or I shall do you an injury …this is a serious conversation”. Turning to the other man she said, “But just look at Emirates , they are really something special, we fly them a lot to Dubai” But the other man just scoffed “Hah! Emirates! You think they would have done well in those great days when Pan Am and TWA were at their prime? You’re joking. Look at the statistics – Easy Jet and Ryan Air are amongst the most fastest growing companies … I mean, they are just the Davydenko’s and Ljubicic’s of the airline industry ..that just says it all”. It may not have said it all, but I didn’t want to listen any further.

Thursday 12 October

In Madrid! On arriving at the hotel, I found out that we were on the same floor as Rafa, so I asked immediately to be switched to another part of the hotel. I have nothing against Rafa – it’s just that he has brought his playstation with him, and it gets very noisy in the evenings when he plays. It is not just his shouting; infact, that is not a problem. The problem is his Uncle Toni, who feels he has to coach him through every time he plays one of the different tennis games on his games console. What makes it worse is that Rafa takes a long time over each game – he tries to respond to fan mail between every serve he makes. SO it always goes on till about 2 am in the morning. Since I got into trouble about Toni’s shouting last time, I decided to keep things simple and move out of the way.

Thursday 19 October

My good friend Tim Henman was knocked out by David Nalbandian, but not before Tim again managed to show his famous sense of humour. In the third set, David asked Tim if he thought the ball was in, and Tim said it might have been. David asked if Tim would then given him the serve, to which Tim said something “ You EXPECT me to give you a serve, at 15-30 in the third set at 5-5?” he said, emphasizing the words expect and 15-30. I think this was again British humour, but I didn’t really get it, and neither, by the sounds of things did David. He then went on to say that Tim was rubbish, but that isn’t true. I will talk to him about if we play on Saturday

Saturday 21 October

Well, David did not hang around long enough for me to ask. It seems nobody really hangs around too much these days when we play together, which is a shame. I will have to speak to Mirka about it.

Sunday 22nd October

Fernando did not hang around very long either, though he got me in the eyes with Champagne. Anyway, I am off to Basel now, my hometown, where I will be the favourite.


Excerpts reproduced with permission, from “The Secret Diary of Roger Federer” aged 25 and 7/6ths, forthcoming, Apostates, Wisemen and Perfectors publishing, London.
With a preface by James Blake.
Based on an idea by Sue Townsend.

I read this on the BBC - absolutely brilliant. Just in the perfect tone of both adrian Mole (and i have to say, reminded me a lot of the diary of John Major which private eye did a number of years ago!!)

roflmao

Yip, saw this on the beeb too... is an inspired piece of writing, probably the best thing that I have seen on the beeb board in the last 6 months.. :ok:

Interesting that a couple of you had already seen this on the beeb - thought you didn't go there any longer :whistle: roflmao

roflmao But poor Mirka, I doubt she's such a tyrant... :whistle:

Mirka completely looks after Roger! roflmao She ensures that all that he needs to concern himself is with the tennis. In business terms alone it's a hugely effective partnership. Of course only part of the picture. On a personal basis they completely dote on each other, by all accounts.

She can be a bit of a tyrant in terms of being fiercely protective of him though.. apparently it's incredibly difficult to get past her in order to arrange an interview with Roger..

Scolios, I can only access British sites at work so read the beeb (and rarely post).. In its current state, I won't miss it when it's gone though.. :rolleyes:

Wow I take it back, I guess Mirka must be a tyrant.....but as you say they seem to love eachother and are a successful partnership in business terms, so good on them