Why it can’t be easy being Mirka Federer
Partners: Roger and Mirka. Photo: Getty.
Mirka Federer must be tough.
It can’t be easy to be married to a sports star, to put your own goals on hold to support the person you love through breathtaking highs, crushing lows, injuries and the never-ending grind of life as a professional athlete.
Mirka’s husband transcends the term ‘sports star’. She’s married to Superman and, as Lois Lane found out, it puts you in the crosshairs.
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And she does it all with two sets of twins – under six.
Vaulted into the news in recent days after supposedly calling Stan Wawrinka a “crybaby” during a tense match at the ATP World Tour Finals in London, the woman born Miroslava Vavrincová found herself at the centre of the type of row Roger Federer has been largely immune to throughout his career.
(Wawrinka is a “crybaby” – anyone who saw him almost blow the Australian Open final against a hobbled Rafael Nadal knows this is a man who will seek out a self-destruct button when none is immediately apparent.)
A tennis player’s ‘box’– where the nearest and dearest gather to ride every glorious winner and netted forehand – has become as important to coverage of the sport as what happens on court.
To most of us, Mirka is a face in ‘the box’ – but it’s hard to think of a steelier, more driving presence.
When Roger Federer’s magnificent career finally reaches the end, the question must be asked: would it have been as glorious had he not met and fallen for his teammate on the 2000 Swiss Olympic team?
Andy Murray had his mother Judy then Ivan Lendl, Novak Djokovic had Marian Vajda and now Boris Becker.
But Mirka is a stayer, and only Rafael Nadal’s Uncle Tony rivals her for longevity as a presence in ‘the box’.
Partners: Roger and Mirka. Photo: Getty
She is like a Da Vinci painting – her beauty, not immediately apparent, slowly gets under your guard like a sneaky boxer.
Passing comment on someone’s appearance is always fraught, but as a man whose exposure to tennis is primarily through the prism of my television, where Mirka is rendered no more than a mute cheerleader whenever her husband wins or blows a crucial point, how she looks is all we have.
To those of us who take an interest in the happenings of professional tennis, her face – anguished, relieved, amused – is as familiar as our mother’s.
And that’s exactly how she can seem at times – like a stage mother at a Texas beauty pageant: fussing, protective and so fiercely loyal it scares.
Federer, who at times appears to have been blessed with supernatural gifts, acknowledges how he lucky he has been on the domestic front.
“I know how fortunate I am,” he said in 2012.
“The kids are healthy, they are happy, and Mirka doesn’t want to be away from me, and I don’t want to be away from her.
“I’m happy that it’s this way, because anything else would make it more difficult to compete and to play at the highest levels. It would basically be impossible.”
A former tennis pro herself, who reached number 76 in the world before foot injuries grounded her, Mirka said she is waiting for Federer’s playing career to wind down before pursuing her own interests.
“You are that only once in your life,” she said in a rare interview with Swiss magazine Schweizer Illustrierte.
“My time is still coming. After the tennis. We have discussed this.”
Of course, many brilliant men have come undone after hanging up the racquet (gloves, boots, bat…).
For a man like Federer, whose genius has been feted for more than a decade, the transition into a quiet tennis afterlife may be difficult.
Mirka – who has been one of the most important figures in the story of one of the greatest athletes in history – may just find herself more needed than ever when age finally beats Roger to love.