Clarey is great at explaining tennis, not so great at explaining Federer. Unless Federer really is as dull and self-centered as he comes across here? A sports biography without any drama or controversy isn't enough to hold my interest.

> It is hard not to see such moments as big positives for the man and player Federer would become. Rip the practice curtain in an act of petulance? Clean the courts and toilets at the crack of dawn. Disrespect a tournament and the sport with lack of effort? Face the fine and the backlash. These are the pivot points, like Robert Federer requiring his temperamental son to find his own ride home in Basel or, in a move that would certainly raise an eyebrow in some cultures, stopping the car and rubbing young Roger’s head in the snow to cool him off during one of his son’s post-tournament rants.

> Ultimately, the choice [left or right] was Rafael’s, and on such turning points does a great rivalry also depend. Nadal as a right-hander would surely have been a potential champion as well with his talent, character, and in-the-moment mentality. But he would not have posed such a tactical conundrum for Federer, who could have used his most reliable weapons—the inside-out forehand and short crosscourt backhand chip—much more effectively.

> It was harder for fans to grow weary of Federer winning titles, big or small, when Nadal had reminded them that winning was not a given

> Federer’s motto was: “It’s nice to be important but more important to be nice.” Nadal and his family subscribed to: “You are not special because of who you are but because of what you do.” Both were soccer fanatics who could have been professionals, and though both happily finished formal schooling at sixteen, they were curious about the wider world that they were now roaming in pursuit of tennis glory.

> one explanation for the dearth of topflight American men’s tennis players in the 2010s was that the Europeans had a developmental advantage growing up on clay. He maintained that too many young Americans were adept at striking the ball but not at playing the game itself. Clay was perhaps the best classroom, blunting raw power and encouraging point construction

> Federer versus Nadal has been the contemporary rivalry that attracted the most attention inside and outside tennis, but Djokovic versus Nadal has been the most contested, with Djokovic versus Federer close behind.

> Federer, in the relaxed atmosphere of a practice session, can be even more fun to watch than when he is swooping around the court when it counts. He is more animated and tries some outrageous shots: acutely angled sliced backhands off balls bouncing high above his head, full-cut forehand half volleys on the baseline, flicks from unlikely places and positions. The extraordinary SABR (“Sneak Attack by Roger”) in which he moved in quickly to return a serve straight off the bounce was, at first, an improvisational practice move.

> For a comparatively small international sport that allows only about two hundred men’s and women’s touring pros to make a good living, tennis has a surfeit of governing bodies: seven if you count the men’s tour, women’s tour, the International Tennis Federation, and the four Grand Slam tournaments, which often act in concert but remain independent entities. Reaching consensus is harder than it should be, and the fragmentation has made it harder for tennis to innovate and create meaningful change. It has held the sport back significantly. Every new event, every modification to the overstuffed schedule, trespasses on someone else’s turf. Federer and Godsick knew all this when they created the Laver Cup in Prague in 2017, and they understood it all the more when they committed to Chicago for the second Laver Cup in 2018

> the first tennis player and one of the few athletes to earn $1 billion during his playing career: joining the golfer Tiger Woods and the boxer Floyd Mayweather. Only about $130 million of Federer’s earnings has come from official prize money.

> Nike is closing in on annual revenue of $50 billion. “The tennis business is about $350 million, so you do the math,” Nakajima said. The rule of thumb, according to Nakajima, is not to spend more than 10 percent of revenue on athlete sponsorship.

> He had been away from his first tennis surface long enough to miss the sliding, the muffled bounce of the ball, and the rituals, like dragging a thick net across the clay to erase the marks and prepare it for the next players. Nadal often sweeps his own practice courts, too, and there is a certain humility in the gesture. It also never gets old to see superstars acting just like the rest of us. “Even Roger Federer cleans the clay,” said Toni Poltera, president of Tennisclub Felsberg, as he watched Federer at work. “This is why Roger is popular here. He’s not over the top. He has the human touch.”

> The five previous Matches for Africa had raised about $10 million for the foundation’s work, and the Cape Town match would raise about $3.5 million more. In total, according to Godsick, Federer had generated more than $50 million through the years for projects in Africa. ( )