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Federer's Men's Vogue interview...

roger_that.jpgThe classy Roger Federer is on the cover of the new issue of Men's Vogue. His pal and fellow world number one Tiger Woods was previously on the magazine's cover...I believe on its first issue last year. These guys are always copying each other!

Here is an interesting bit in the article about Bjorn Borg:
Last fall, as Federer was settling in to his new apartment at the vast under-construction marina in Dubai, he heard that the greatest of all tennis head-to-heads was being reprised up the road: Björn Borg was billed to play John McEnroe in the "Legends Rock Dubai" exhibition event. Though they played out their indelible rivalry before Federer was born, he has always been a Borg man (everyone is one or the other). He and the iconic Swede had spoken on the phone, but they had never properly met.
2006-05-25-borg-med 2.jpgFederer retains an aura of boyishness, and in the corner of a bar in one of Dubai's decadently opulent, apparently gold-plated hotels, he giggles a bit as he recalls how he approached Borg. "I called this guy who knew him and said, 'Tell Björn I will be on court tomorrow at 10.' I wanted to say something specific so it would be easy for him to say no. I didn't want to embarrass him."
Federer need not have worried. The holder of 10 Grand Slam titles (and counting) arrived at the appointed hour to find the 11-time Grand Slam winner already warming up. "He played very well," Federer recalls, with an element of awe. "I could easily still practice with him, you know."

roger_that3.jpgAnother part of the article reads: I'm reminded how on my first meeting with him, that sunny breakfast, he was studying the newspaper reports of his Wimbledon victory the day before. That, he admits, is one ritual he can't shake. After every win, he waits up and gets a paper as soon as it comes out—at three or four in the morning—to read about whatever miracles he performed the previous afternoon. He can't get to sleep otherwise.
Thinking of this, he smiles, looks around the bar of the gold-plated hotel in this soulless fantasy of a resort, and explains what might actually be the most pressing challenge of his life. "I have to know somehow that it is all real, that it is out there," he says. That reality check will begin again for Roger Federer this month in Paris. Immortality waits, but so, he hopes, does Rafael Nadal.

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Greg Hernandez

Deuce! is about all things tennis - from the pro game down to the local level. It is anchored by Daily News Staff Writer Greg Hernandez who has profiled such players as Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King, and the Bryan brothers. Greg is looking to complete the spectator's grand slam with a visit to the Australian Open someday soon. He has already been to Wimbledon, the French Open and the U.S. Open.
greg.hernandez@dailynews.com

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