It was never a case of “if”—only “when.” It came down to a gorgeous Saturday night in Newport, Rhode Island, as Roger Federer, along with former pro player and acclaimed sports broadcaster Mary Carillo, was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame (ITHF)—the sort of honor that anyone who had seen him play throughout his storied career knew awaited him, sooner rather than later.
Tennis fans turned out in record numbers to pay tribute to both Carillo and Federer, with hundreds witnessing the ceremony in the ITHF’s historical Horseshoe Court and thousands more gathered nearby on the grounds at an enormous watch party—the culmination of days of events at the Hall of Fame, including Friday night’s Fit For Fame Blazer Presentation Dinner, in which the newest honorees receive their custom Brooks Brothers blue blazers with the ITHF racket logo on the pocket.
(To those readers wondering, “Why Newport,” or “Why here?”: The ITHF is located in the former Newport Casino athletic complex, designed by McKim, Mead, & White and thus establishing the firm’s national reputation; aside from being the center of Newport’s social life from the Gilded Age through the 1920s, the site was the host of the earliest lawn tennis championships in the United States and, in 1954, became the home of the ITHF, which includes a revelatory museum, public courts, both indoor and outdoor, on grass and other surfaces, and the country’s only court tennis facility—though it also hosted the early years of the Newport Jazz Festival, including Bob Dylan’s historic performance with Joan Baez in the Horseshoe Court in 1963.)
Minutes before the ceremony began, Federer—following a long list of Hall of Famers including John McEnroe and Stan Smith, along with skiing legend and Federer friend Lindsey Vonn—greeted the crowd at the watch party, even fielding a few questions. (To one father, who asked the 20-time Grand Slam champion what he should do to encourage and prepare his four-year-old daughter for a stellar tennis career, Federer responded, deadpan: “Four—it’s a little late, isn’t it? I started at three. I mean, I think the train has left the station.”)
Moments later, at a private reception upstairs at the ITHF’s monumental and historic headquarters, surrounded by his wife, Mirka, and the couple’s two sets of twin children, along with their close friends, Federer was at once his usual self—relaxed, self-assured, self-effacing, and impeccably turned-out in a tan suit, white shirt, and navy tie—and, as he put it, “kind of nervous.” He smiled and bade us farewell as we found our places out on the grass court.
Carillo’s induction came first, with the legendary Billie Jean King doing the honors. Carillo’s speech was both moving and hilarious, as she explained—with her childhood friend McEnroe, who grew up a few blocks from her in Douglaston, Queens (the two won the mixed doubles title at the French Open together in 1977 before knee injuries caused Carillo to move to broadcasting)—her origin story with tennis: One weekend when she was six, she won a local fishing contest, and for the prize, she got to pick between a new fishing rod or a tennis racket. She picked the tennis racket because she thought she could use it to catch crabs in nearby Little Neck Bay. The rest, of course, is history.
And then came Federer, with his beloved wife Mirka, herself a former pro player, introducing him. “When we met, he had exactly zero titles,” she said. “Zero. In those early days, I would sometimes even help warm him up on the court for his matches, and I still hearing remember Andy Roddick say, after he’d lost to Roger around this time, “I can’t believe I lost to a guy whose girlfriend warms him up.” Roddick—and the rest of the crowd—went nuts.