Federer's blog: Wednesday, October 4, 2006

Konnichiwa

Last night we had the sponsor reception and welcome party at the official hotel here in Tokyo. Together with other players I went on stage to break a barrel of sake, which is supposed to bring good luck. I thought of giving it such a hard wack that I would destroy the barrel but at the very last moment I thought to myself ‘Roger maybe you shouldn’t be doing this’ and I behaved appropriately by giving it the right force.
After the party I went for dinner with Tim Henman and Stefan Koubek who are two of my friends on the tour. We went to a teppanyaki restaurant where they cook in front of you. Tim had a funny idea and decided to exchange his chopsticks with the chef’s utensils and took over from him. Actually he was pretty good, I mean he’s a father after all, but I got too worried about my beef and I requested a change of chef. The dinner was delicious.

I got back to the room, went to sleep and already got into match rhythm. I woke up, went for breakfast with Mirka and Tony, got my stuff ready, just making sure that I have enough shirts, shoes, etc. This time I actually had a problem with my rackets. Last night I was rushing so bad to get to the player welcome party after my practice that I forgot to get my rackets strung for today’s match. But the tournament helped out to get the rackets from the hotel to the tennis courts before me so they could be ready. I was glad that everything worked out in the end.
I got the stadium and when I walked out on Centre Court for my first match I felt the place buzzing. There were a lot of fans out there today and that made me feel really happy and excited to play. It went very well for a first match as I didn’t know my opponent at all before going on court and that always makes it pretty difficult. As you know I won in two tough tiebreak sets. After the match I had to do press, doping test, stretch and massage, the usual looooong routine.
After the match I always like to get in touch with friends and family but here in Japan my ‘stone age’ mobile phone doesn’t work. They are so advanced here with the modern technologies that I really need to try and get the latest stuff from here before I go back.
I will be funnier again tomorrow as I am quite tired from the match and Dmitry is looking over my shoulder and making me very nervous…
Sayonara
Rog
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