Taki: What Roger Federer and Anthony Weiner have in common

 

Gstaad

One possesses youth, talent, fame, even beauty, the other none of the above except arrogance, physical repulsiveness and a sexual impudence that fits perfectly into our pornocentric culture. Both, however, need to quit their respective professions, the former in order to preserve his great legacy, the latter to save the city of New York from one more repellent politician-pervert. I’ll start with the good guy. Roger Federer is among the greatest champions ever, if not the greatest of all time. If one goes by the record, 17 grand slams, he has the top spot by a mile. He’s been — sorry for the cliché — a credit to the game, a great sportsman whose only mistake in my not so humble opinion is to keep competing. Just before this year’s Wimbledon I wrote in these pages that he was no longer a threat. Alas, I was proved right, Roger losing in an early round to a player ranked 116. He followed it up by losing in Hamburg to a player ranked 114, and now here in Gstaad, his own backyard, to a German ranked 55 in the second round. (Mind you, one of the greatest Greek tennis players of all time, Taki, was proud to pass one round in the Swiss Open back in 1956, and continued playing for another ten years, but Greek tennis was not renowned back then and never will be, and Taki resembled Roger in that we are both males and that’s where the resemblance ends.) The lower ranks continue to take their toll on Federer, and that’s why I’d like to see him get off the circuit and enjoy a relaxed retirement. The trouble is he’s only 32, can still hit the ball like very few can, and knows no other way of life except that of a touring pro. To know when one’s no longer a top banana is very, very hard. Losing the killer instinct in sport is as subtle as the ageing process. By the time one sees the light, it’s too late. And who am I, among the most obscure players ever, to give advice to a great champion? Well, as Oscar said, old men teach, young men do, or words to that effect. I just don’t like to have people remember him losing to lesser players, as we tend to do, but rather in his glory days, winning effortlessly and elegantly. My only wish is that I’m wrong, but as an ancient Greek, that happens almost never, septuagenarian conceit or not. Now about the disgusting one, and why he should take a powder sooner rather than disgusting us even more than he has up to now. Anthony Weiner, running for mayor of New York City, resigned his congressional seat a couple of years ago when caught texting pictures of his willy to numerous women. Politicians are not known for their dignity, and the paronomastic Weiner and dignity were and are poles apart. He is a very ugly man to begin with, so I’d hate to imagine the horror contained in those pictures he proudly texted to those unlucky women recipients. Not even two years went by before Weiner was back in the news, declaring for mayor and in no time at all leading the motley field. His spiel was that mortification at what he’d done had made him a new man. When I read about it I instantly lifted the cuffs of my trousers in a Pavlovian reaction at not getting them dirty with the bull***t. Now I’m glad I did. Weiner was caught doing it again and again and again as women emerged from the filth that’s the internet exposing him as a habitual flasher and some other things I cannot mention in the elegant pages of my own organ, no pun intended. This time, however, Weiner has not resigned, but has compared himself with Nelson Mandela and FDR. No, he has not said that they went around sending pictures of their private parts to women, but: ‘Would they have been so great had they not had those obstacles?’ That is, prison in Mandela’s case, polio in FDR’s. So being flung into prison for speaking out, or catching polio is one and the same as sending pictures of one’s aroused organ according to the most disgusting man in the great city of New York. Go figure, as they say, and if you’re a woman recipient, reach for the cleavers, say I. If anyone deserves castration it has to be Weiner, but then we are a tolerant society, and his wife does work as a gofer for the ghastly Hillary Clinton. Quit while you’re ahead has always been my motto, but I haven’t always followed it. I was a very bad front-runner in tennis because rules do not permit one to quit when ahead. As the great Yogi Berra stipulated, it’s not over till it’s over, and for me tennis took much too long to be over. One needs to concentrate for long periods, which never suited my personality. Karate and judo are over in a jiffy, hence they’re my favourite pursuits. Weiner has been around for much too long. If he gets to be mayor I swear I’m moving to Qatar or will start keeping company with Tamara Ecclestone and her ilk.