Tennis Chatter

The holiday bug is generally characterized by generosity. For naturally generous people, giving is just their personality at work. For the tightwads, the holidays act like a dark force, a specter lurking over them egging their conscience to “give some love on Christmas day, man!�?

Time is such a gift in this dog-eat-dog-and-master world. Capping his busy and bountiful year (he became the first tennis player in history to earn $8 million prize money in a single season), Roger Federer took an official trip to India recently in behalf of his work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. No, he was not busy doing his ambassadorial wave while donning his famous Wimbledon off-white jacket but sat down with the tsunami-affected children of Tamil Nadu, the hardest hit of the tsunami that rocked Asia in 2004. Gee, it seemed like yesterday. Time does fly, doesn’t it? Yet for the victims, it seems that the clock has not ticked at all.

It is refreshing to see an insanely successful young man give something to the suffering humanity. Yes, I wrote “humanity�? as opposed to tennis fans, sponsors, tennis associations and federations. Part of Roger’s charm is his willingness to be exposed to the other side of glamour. From the pages of Vogue to facing the tsunami victims, he makes the transition smooth because one can sense that he is compassionate by nature. The man cried buckets when he won Wimbledon and held the Australian Open trophy, for crying out loud! Oh, and expect him to shed more tears of joy when his face will be reflected in the shiny French Open trophy in 2007.

Expectations are high from those who have far less to those who have it in plentiful. Roger Federer shared his precious time to inspire the children of the east this holiday season. In return, they subtly taught him the priceless meaning of appreciation. To state the obvious, The Champ aced 2006 even off the court.