The Master: The Brilliant Career of Roger Federer Paperback – 7 July 2022

nice

One of the best books that I could lay my hands on. I could relate to sports icon as I myself like being in the gym. Exercise is more like a sport with its own challenges and triumph. Roger is the man to follow if ever one happens to be in any sport. Just follow him and you are most likely to do good in sports and in life.

Christopher Clarey's bio of Federer was much awaited and no doubt the redoubtable New York Times correspondent, who knows more about tennis than most of the players he writes on, delivers an adoring biography that finds no flaws in Roger Federer, glosses over humane failings and reinforces all the good things that were known about the global icon. Even Federer needs a good biography and Clarey has obediently delivered. Is there anything here that we did not know about Fed that we find here? Nothing much really, apart from some details of his family life (walks into restaurants without booking ) and to me the fact that all his freshly gutted rackets are lined up near the fireplace by his wife. In a bio there can be only one hero normally but other biographers like Walter Isaacson have shown us the warts of his subjects and stops short of being as adoring as Clarey is. Isaacson was not a good friend of Jobs so he was not adoring of his subject. But here Clarey was given access to the inner circle of Federer and seems ever so grateful for that. There is no doubt glorious prose in most pages and the only tangential move that the author makes is to write about Djokovic and Nadal. Even Fed's wife is a bit player much less of a contributor to the Federer success than his agent Tony Godsick. Clarey has done hard work no doubt speaking to most people who have had access to Fed. In the end we are happy to know that even in today's world there are people like Fed who have achieved everything, riches and friends and family and fame and still remained god-like: serene and masterful. In this world there is hope still. (The reviewer is author of Top Game: Winning. Losing and a new Understanding of Sport)

loved it!

A great outside view into the people and events that shaped Roger Federer both as a person as well as a player. I think people need to remember this isn't an autobiography, it's a brilliantly written view by a respected tennis journalist, who has brought together bits from different interviews with people around Roger, including contemporaries, coaches, people in his inner circle and Roger himself. It's very well written and a great read.

Well, any piece on Federer is welcome to be preserved. This one is very well researched with details also other than on-court experiences. Very easy for any fed-head to picture.Having said that "Fedegraphica" is the best by far.

Loved it!

A deep dive in Federer's life. Greatly researched and beautifully written.