In 2018, Federer signed a 10-year, US$300 million sponsorship contract with Uniqlo. "First Financial" YiMagazine took the opportunity to conduct an exclusive interview with him. At that time, Federer said: "Every battle suit I work with Uniqlo may be my last one."
Now, Federer is 38 years old, and his most expensive commercial contract in the history of tennis has been fulfilled for a year. He remains the top tennis player on the planet.
After a year, Federer came to Shanghai again in early October, just like in the past, a few days ahead of the Shanghai Masters. YiMagazine interviewed Federer again.
Feder attended a Uniqlo event in Shanghai and took photos with his fans.
Y=YiMagazine
F=Federer
Y: You always travel around the world, and you also switch between many identities - athletes, husbands, fathers, businessmen, philanthropists - how to stay focused on everything?
F: Simply put, pay attention to quality. As you said, tennis is a sport that requires long-term focus. But when I was young, I couldn't do it. After playing for an hour, I wanted to rest and my attention was distracted. So I forced myself to focus on training for three, four, five hours on the training ground to train my nerves. Today, I still train hard, but in a different way. I have proven that my spirit can be highly concentrated in five hours of competition, so training quality becomes very important. I will not practice for so long, but make sure that no matter what I do, I will achieve 100% results. If it doesn't work, I would rather stop, save my body and do something else.
is not only tennis, but also in other things. It is very important to manage your schedule and energy accurately. My first choice is to ensure rest time. For example, I have a lot of itineraries at the end of this year, but I will still travel with my wife for three or four days and then return to the spotlight. Next I will do my best in the Masters, so hopefully you can see me not only have one good game, but many games.
Y: You have worked with Uniqlo for a year, and you even said that you didn’t expect that you could still maintain this state at the age of 38. How to evaluate the cooperation with Uniqlo?
F: I don’t have to worry about tennis. Uniqlo is very professional and knows what kind of matches can help players. Our cooperation is more about off-court. It was a relief for my parents to appreciate my character so much. My wife and children can’t wait to go to Tokyo again, and for this I want to thank Uniqlo for making me many new friends. Not only did it make me come to Japan again, but it also made it easier for me to come to China. As John Jay (Uniqlo Global Creative President) often says: You will retire from the tennis court, but you won’t retire from life. Our cooperation is still long.
Y: You seem to be very good at making friends with people in different fields. What do you value in friendship?
F: It is cool to get inspiration and motivation from friends, and this is how it works with Uniqlo. , Mr. Yanai, and his family are very nice to me and invited me to visit his home in Tokyo, which allowed me to understand the culture I was not familiar with before. And John Jay, who has many novel and creative ideas, and I really like having friends like this. But most importantly, I promised myself that I would not be careful when dating people just because I was on TV or won many championships. I like to chat freely, it is simpler. I am willing to give every new friend a chance and then expect them to live up to my trust.
Y: When people talk about you, they often use words such as "elegance", "talent", "easy", and "easy", but they don't seem to use "willpower" and "hardness". Do you think the latter is important in your career and daily life?
F: Indeed, this may be the part I'm underrated. Maybe I'm the kind of athlete who sometimes misleads others, people think I'm talented, and everything is simple to me.Maybe it’s because when I’m not yelling or sweating like (like some tennis players), so it’s easy to win, and if I lose, people will ask: Why don’t you work hard anymore? The only thing I can say is that if I didn't do my best, I couldn't do all that now. Maybe it's hard to explain to ordinary fans that my tennis style - like light movement - is behind the skills taught by the coach and hard training.
Diligence may be the underestimated part of Federer.
Y: In fact, you never withdrew midway.
F: Never give up! Of course, if I broke my leg, I had to quit, but luckily it never happened.
Y: Is there anything you once believed in but now you doubt it?
F: To be honest, it seems that there is no. I am a simple person. I believe in simple principles, happiness, determination, and planning, and can bring you good results. I just stick to these ordinary things.
Y: What is your favorite book or film and television work recently?
F: To be honest, I am not the type of reading books all the time. I always hope that I can read more books with more time in the future. Now I watch more movies. You know I have a lot of travel, so I watch a lot of movies on the plane and sometimes I watch a lot of crying. Recently I have watched a lot of superhero movies, "Avengers", "Aquaman", "Wonder Woman", and "Detective Pikachu".
Y: Andre Agassi once said that tennis is a lonely sport and you have to make all decisions alone. Do you like this feeling of loneliness?
F: Tennis is indeed lonely. In many sports, players can receive coaching guidance during the game, but tennis is not good. All we can do is look at the coach on the sidelines, and he can't say anything. If he says it, he will be warned and I must find a way to win. I enjoyed the process. You will recall the pre-match game plan, recall the strengths and weaknesses of your opponent, and at the right moment, compress this information and draw conclusions. This is a cool place for tennis and it also helps me with my daily life.
Y: You have an excellent charity foundation . We have talked to many entrepreneurs or sports stars who want to build their own foundations to help others, but they find it difficult to set up a goal and make sure everything works well. Any suggestions for them?
F: First of all, it is important to find a goal that resonates with yourself. Your own code of conduct should be consistent with the goals of the foundation. The goal may be related to your experience or people, things, and things that are important to you. To me, children and education have always been my concern; secondly, you have to find a professional team, transparency is important, it can avoid potential problems. I'm lucky that the CEO of my foundation was able to listen to the right opinions. I also learned a lot from Bill Gates . He told me two points: first, this is a lifelong career that requires continuous learning; second, you are just providing help, not telling others what to do. The children we meet all hope to live independently in the future and help them do this, which is what we want to achieve.
Feder's charitable foundation has been helping children in poor areas for education.
Y: Last year you told me that at this stage of your career, the most difficult and most important thing is to keep the fire in your heart. Now another year has passed, is this fire still burning strong?
F: Of course, it's still burning. I can't be as full of energy as a 14-year-old, but I have so many things to be happy with. At the age of 38, I was able to work with Uniqlo and still in the top three in the world, still in good health, the kids were healthy, my wife was amazing, we all enjoyed traveling, and every time we played, there were still thousands of people who wanted to come to see me play, so it was easy for me to stay enthusiastic. At the end, I still have tennis. Even if I retire in a few years, I will continue to play tennis. I just love it.
Reprinted from the official account with authorization: YiMagazine (CBNweekly2008)
