Federer wins with family in spite of Rome loss

It has been quite an exciting week for anyone who calls themselves a Roger Federer fan.  Of course, by now everyone is aware of the incredible fact that the Federers welcomed a second set of twins, rounding things out by adding two boys to go along with their adorable 4 1/2 year old identical girls.  I have been waiting to do any type of blog post until the uproar subsided at least a tiny bit and until I had a few more details to go along with the news.

I read a wonderful article in The Telegraph that gave some particulars related to little Leo and Lenny Federer, one of these being that they aren't yet sure whether the boys are identical like their sisters or fraternal, like their twin cousins, boy/girl twins of Roger's sister Diana.  They are having a DNA test done to determine this.  Apparently Roger's maternal grandmother was also a twin.  

Allegedly everything happened quite quickly on the evening of May 6th, a week before the official due date.  Roger had been waiting to decide if he was going to Madrid to participate in the tournament and it's a good thing he waited or he would have missed the arrival.  Everything went smoothly, both for the birth and in the week since.  Roger said he didn't remember how much they slept in the beginning, which he says is happening about 22-23 hours a day at this point.  That probably won't continue for long!

He talked about being excited to bring the whole brood along as he travels around the world.  Of course they realize the challenges, but they have already done it with one set, so what's one more, right?  They apparently intend to begin that in Paris at Roland Garros, beginning on May 25th.

His team, including his wife Mirka, decided it would be a good idea for him to play the event in Rome to make sure he kept his rhythm up, though it sounded like he would have been happy to stay at home with the family.  It turns out it will be a short trip, however.  He played Jeremy Chardy in his first match, easily winning the first set in the windy conditions.  The second set, though, Chardy played much more solid and Roger beginning making way too many errors.  The third set evened out a bit again.  Though he was initially down a break, he broke back to take it to a tiebreak.  With a match point on his racquet at 6-5, Chardy made an incredible save for a winner, then ended up taking it 8-6.  While Roger admitted later in his press conference to feeling some anger and frustration, he quickly was able to put that aside, knowing his beautiful family is home awaiting his return.

While some people may try to read things into this loss, there is nothing to be made of it.  For him to even be playing a week after having a second set of twins is pretty incredible.  To expect him to play with full concentration so soon after a momentous occasion is ridiculous.  Chardy played well when he needed to and took advantage of the circumstances.  Federer will be back for Roland Garros ready to play, hopefully with a good draw, and happy with the state of the amazing life that he has.