Swiss Review 4/2018

Swiss Review / July 2018 / No.4 18 Culture STÉPHANE HERZOG The best tennis player of all time, a stylish player of incomparable grace, a fair-play athlete, a serene champion who can still cry for joy, a father and exemplary husband ... The virtues with which Roger Federer has been credited are innumerable. And after each victory, the press wonders how the superlatives associated with his achievements can be embellished yet further. “We don’t dare dream any more in Switzerland. We’re too re- strained,” says Gérald Herrmann, the cartoonist for La Tribune de Genève . “But Federer enables us to let rip. He’s a god!” In collaboration with Vincent die Silvestro, who drew the pictures, Herrmann wrote the story for a satir- ical and crazy story, ‘Rodger, l’en- fance de l’art.’ This 80-page comic album, which was published in the spring, follows Federer’s life fromhis birth to his phe- nomenal junior world title and Wim- bledon win “in July of the year 16”, in other words 1998. “Roger was quick-tempered, just like Borg. He cried with fury after losing matches, but we know little about his child- hood,” Herrmann says. The Genevan has his hero lose his virginity to Mar- tina Hingis, the global tennis star, at 16. “He achieved everything that he could achieve,” says the self-con- fessed Roger fan, who admits that he has to hide in the toilets whenever his hero plays against Nadal. “We are 8 million Swiss out of 8 billion people on the planet. And yet our country has brought forth a champion of this cal- ibre, who beats all the others and has remained at the very top for a very long time,” Herrmann explains. Are there any Swiss heroes to compare with “RF”?What about Berhard Russi, for example? “We’re proud of him, but he is far less important internation- ally,” Herrmann says. Federer and his false twin brother This comic album is a bit like an ex- tended quiz for all those unac- quainted with the minutiae of Roger Federer’s life. Did “Rodger” perhaps lose a twin brother at birth who later Is Roger Federer the Swiss Jesus? ‘Rodger, l’enfance de l’art,’ a satirical comic album dedicated to the Swiss tennis player, presents him as a divine being. The book’s author, Herrmann, lauds Federer’s unmatched ability to make his countrymen dream. Federer as a ball boy in Basel in 1990. McEnroe predicted: “You’ll be the next McEnroe.” Rodger was furious: “I want to be Edberg!!!”