Roger, that: At 38, Federer’s brand image remains impeccable as he becomes world’s richest athlete

Roger Federer’s proud record of not forfeiting a tennis match in his epic career seemed to be under threat at Australia Open at the start of this year. A clearly wounded Federer lost to Novak Djokovic 7-6 (7/1), 6-4, 6-3 and admitted later he only had “a 3% chance” to win as he nursed a groin injury picked up in his quarter-final epic against Tennys Sandgren, where he saved seven match points.

But only a few days after that, the tennis world was abuzz with the idea of watching Federer and Rafael Nadal in action. Despite injury, he assured fans of his participation in the charity event titled Match in Africa. After all, more than 48,000 tickets were sold in under 10 minutes in September 2019 when bookings were opened.

It is just the hold #Fedal have on the tennis community and another surefire sign of Federer’s incredible popularity. The outing with Nadal, Bill Gates and Trevor Noah raised $3.5m for Federer’s eponymous foundation, and the crowd of 51,954 set a new world record for a tennis match.

If that marked an interesting start the year for Federer, things just got more interesting on Friday. For the first time since turning professional in 1998, the Swiss superstar became the richest athlete in...Read more

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