Dave Seminara - Footsteps of Federer: A Fans Pilgrimage Across 7 Swiss Cantons in 10 Acts

Advance Praise for Footsteps of Federer

Footsteps of Federer is a brilliant book, a creative idea, a travelogue, a why-tennis-matters manifesto, a thoughtful essay on Roger Federer, and a personal story of why things matter to us and what matters most. Stay for the goosebumps-inducing end.

Greg Bishop, Sports Illustrated

Dave Seminara has deftly combined his love of travel with his love of tennis to tell us how one of the worlds most beautiful countries produced one of the worlds most popular athletes.

Thomas Swick, author of The Joys of Travel

You would think that everything has already been written about Roger Federer, the greatest tennis player of all time. But Seminaras redemptive travels around Switzerland introduce us to sights, courts, and characters that reveal new layers to the Federer story. His sense of humor, love of tennis, and willingness to ask anyone anything make Seminaras pilgrimage a fun ride youll want to take.

Megan Fernandez, Indianapolis Monthly

The crux of this story is one writers devotion to the most beloved tennis athlete in history. To me it was also a beautiful trip down memory lane. I played in the German Bundesliga for years after retiring from the tour and Daves description of the little tennis clubs he visited on his journey captures the joy of post match dinners and draft beer that I remember so fondly.

Cliff Drysdale, Hall of Fame tennis player
and ESPN broadcaster

A charming new book about all things Federer that concludes with a plot twist worthy of one of Hercule Poirots drawing-room denouements.

Simon Briggs, Daily Telegraph

In a creative and thoughtful way, Dave Seminara digs both wide and deep into tennis great Roger Federers native Switzerland.

Joel Drucker, Tennis.com-Tennis Channel, author of Jimmy Connors Saved My Life , and historian-at-large, International Tennis Hall of Fame

A POST HILL PRESS BOOK

ISBN: 978-1-64293-856-2

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-64293-857-9

Footsteps of Federer:

A Fans Pilgrimage Across 7 Swiss Cantons in 10 Acts

2021 by Dave Seminara

All Rights Reserved

Cover art by Chad Lowe

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

This is a work of nonfiction. All people, locations, events, and situations are portrayed to the best of the authors memory.

Post Hill Press

New York Nashville

posthillpress.com

Published in the United States of America

Contents

T he Einsiedeln Abbey has been an important place of pilgrimage since shortly after St. Meinrad, the Martyr of Hospitality, retreated to the secluded Dark Forest in a valley between Lake Zrich and Lake Lucerne to establish a hermitage around 835. I visited in October 2019 as part of an unusual pilgrimage: I had come to Switzerland to walk, and hopefully play tennis, in the footsteps of Roger Federer, and I wanted to start my journey in an appropriately auspicious place.

But when I contacted the abbey to arrange my visit, the Benedictine monks had a surprise for me. Did you know our abbot is also named Federer? asked Marc Dosch, the abbeys lay representative. I had not. Yes, and he baptized Rogers children. I resisted the urge to say, well, Ill be damned , and Dosch casually mentioned that Abbot Urban Federer would also be attending the final of the Swiss Indoors, the tennis tournament in Basel that I was building my Federer pilgrimage around. Destiny, indeed.

Ive been a tennis player and obsessive fan since the late 1970s when I idolized Bjrn Borg, and later John McEnroe, Boris Becker and, most of all, Roger. Health problems forced me to give up playing tennis for long spells, first in late 2004 (multiple sclerosis attack) and again in 2015 (knee surgery). In January 2017, just as my knee was almost healed, I was diagnosed with morphea, a painful autoimmune skin disease that attacked my feet, legs, torso, and arms.

By the time I started to plan my Federer trip, I had progressed from the dark times, when my skin was so itchy and brittle that standing in place for more a couple minutes was excruciating, to a point where I was dreaming about playing tennis again. And not just on neighborhood courts, but somewhere special, somewhere Roger had played, as a little treat to myself for all the suffering I had endured over the last few years.

The travel editor of The New York Times commissioned me to write an (all too brief) story, which covered some of my expenses for a ten-day trip, and my credential application for the Swiss Indoors was approved, which meant that Id hopefully have a chance to ask Roger questions in post-match press conferences. I have a couple of friends who are almost as obsessed with Roger as I am, but alas, neither were free, so I resolved to go alone.

Why should a happily married man of forty-seven years with two kids obsess over a Swiss tennis player? My Fed fetish began with simple appreciation for Rogers beautiful game: the graceful strokes, his balletic footwork, his bold net game, his mastery of every shot in the sports canon. Over the years, though, his beautiful game became less important to me compared to what Ive come to admire most about the Swiss legendhis sportsmanship, his sense of humor, and his willingness to show weakness and shed tears on the court. I like the man so much I tried to name my second-born child after him. (My wife vetoed that plan, and a few years later, Roger named one of his sons Leo, the name we picked for our firstborn.)

Ive had opportunities to ask Roger questions in press conferences at tournaments Ive covered, but Id never properly met him until 2013. That year, I was covering Wimbledon for The New York Times during the first week of the tournament when Roger lost to Sergiy Stakhovsky, then ranked 116th, in the second round. On the first Monday morning of the fortnight, during the gloriously quiet hour or two before the grounds of the All England Club are open to the public, I was walking and talking with Nick Bollettieri when I saw Roger and Paul Annacone, his coach at the time, approaching us.

Roger made a beeline toward us and embraced Nick. For a moment, I stood there, assuming the three of them would have a chat while I stood there feeling like a discarded milk carton. But Roger came to the rescue, turning to me with a friendly greeting and a handshake. Our interaction lasted no more than a minute, but he was very nice, nothing extraordinary, but that was the beauty of it, he acted like a normal, genuine person, not at all like a celebrity. Im not easily starstruck, but I returned to the media center feeling like Id just received a blessing from the Pope.

My admiration for Mr. Roger (no middle name) Federer reached new levels in 2017 when he won two majors after nearly every tennis writer had already written his tennis obit. He could have quietly drifted off to the Alps to meditate in the lotus position while counting his Swiss francs, but instead, he rededicated himself to the sport and turned the tables on his younger rivals.

When Roger won the Australian Open in 2017his first major in nearly five yearsI had just started to experience out-of-control inflammation in my feet and legs. The condition was so painful and itchy that I couldnt sleep. Staying up all night watching Roger win Down Under brightened my mood and eased the pain.