Forever: At 36, Roger Federer rewrites tennis history

Roger Federer arrived in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam last week with an unexpected opportunity of reclaiming the title of No. 1 male tennis player. He was given a wild card entry and a top seed in the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament in exchange for interrupting his winter family vacation at home in Switzerland.

A perfect draw scenario required that Federer, ranked No. 2 in the world, need only to reach the semifinals of this ATP 500 event – where he would earn 180 ATP rankings points – and if successful, the No. 1 ranking would be his by a mere 25 points over the current World No. 1 Rafael Nadal.

After a pair of straight-set wins advanced him to the quarterfinals, Federer played for history on Friday night against his good friend, the unseeded No. 42 Robin Haase of the Netherlands, on Centre Court, in front of a sellout crowd at the Rotterdam Ahoy arena – plus a world wide TV audience.

The Swiss maestro didn't disappoint anyone.

In an emotional touchstone, Federer beat Haase, 4-6, 6-1, 6-1, in just 79 minutes, and he received a standing ovation from the appreciative Dutch crowd, many of them waving signs and banners. Federer briefly broke down after his meaningful and historic achievement was completed. Then, he was honored by the tournament's director, Richard Krajicek, who presented Federer with a commemorative trophy for becoming the oldest player to reach the ATP No. 1.

"I think reaching No. 1 is one of if not the ultimate achievement in our sport," said Federer, addressing the crowd after his record-breaking achievement. "So, sometimes at the beginning you just all of a sudden get there just because you're playing so well. Later, you sometimes try to fight it back and you wrestle it back from somebody else who deserved to be there. And when you're older, you know you feel like you have to put maybe sometimes double the work in. So, this one maybe means the most to me (of any achievement) throughout my career, getting to No. 1 and enjoying it right here at 36, almost 37 years old. (It) is an absolute dream come true, I can't believe it."

Although recapturing the No. 1 ranking for the first time since Nov. 4, 2012 – and supplanting Andre Agassi by more than three years to become the oldest male tennis player to be ranked World No. 1 – hasn't been a primary goal of his in 2018, everything has fallen into place very nicely for the 20-time Grand Slam champion. First, Federer helped Switzerland win the Hopman Cup in Perth to begin the year. Then, he won the Australian Open for a record-tying sixth time on Jan. 28. While other former No. 1 champions such as Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray have struggled with injuries, Federer remains healthy and undefeated with a perfect 12-0 tour-level record (16-0 in all competitions).

Chasing after his 97th career ATP singles title on Sunday afternoon, Federer routed World No. 5 Grigor Dimitrov, 6-2, 6-2, to win the Rotterdam title. Looking fully focused and ready, Federer's victory marked the 30th time that he's defeated a Top 5 opponent in the final to earn a tour-level title.

"What a week it's been; absolutely amazing," said Federer, during the trophy presentation. "The goal was to make it to the semis – and I won the tournament. So, of course, I'm incredibly excited and so very happy. ... I'm still living the dream."

Indeed, in the past 14 months since January 2017, Federer has won three of his 20 Grand Slams (two Australian Opens and Wimbledon). In a professional career spanning 20 years, Federer has played 1,394 matches and won 1,144 of them – simply, an amazing achievement.

It's amazing to see Federer playing so well at age 36 – breaking records on court while balancing family life away from it – and according to U.S. Davis Cup captain and former No. 1 and Grand Slam champion Jim Courier, in a recent New York Times interview, "That he can make another run at the No. 1 ranking ... is a testament to his immense talent, diligent work habits and intelligent scheduling over the course of his career."

After his triumphant return to No. 1, the American apparel and footwear corporation Nike recognized Federer. who has long worn the familiar Nike swoosh on his tennis attire and shoes, and has an exclusive line that is marketed around the world. "Federer should be making history," the full-page advertisement in The New York Times read. "But Federer is too busy making it."

Federer's career has come full circle. He played his first tournament as World No. 1 in 2004 in Rotterdam, and now he's returned to No. 1 a day after winning Rotterdam in 2018. "It's definitely one of those weeks I will never forget in my life," he said. "It's unbelievable to get my 97th title and get back to World No. 1. It's very special."

Photo: Courtesy of Google Images.

A commentary: How long will we accept weapons of war being used to slaughter our nation's children?

On Wednesday, President Trump did not address the nation after the Florida high school shooting that left at least 17 dead. While his advisors recommended he say something in the aftermath of the latest horrific mass shooting in America, such as what President Obama did back in December 2012 in dealing with the Sandy Hook Elementary horror in which a gunman killed 20 first graders and six adults at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut – a moment he later said in a TV interview was the worst day of his presidency – this President opted not to. Mr. Trump remained silent, hiding behind his Twitter account.

While we have become tired of the empty gestures and platitudes which come with each new national tragedy, it seems that we as a nation should be disturbed by this President, who always wants to provoke, never reassure or commiserate like President Obama did so eloquently more than once during his eight-year stewardship of the White House.

Yesterday, before his team's NBA game in Portland, Oregon – just hours after the Florida shooting – Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr, who has always been open about his views on politics, addressed the matter of gun violence head on – unlike our current commander-in-chief. Kerr spoke out passionately about the need to find a way to curtail gun violence in the United States.

"It doesn't seem to matter to our government that children are being shot to death day after day in schools. It doesn't matter that people are being shot at a concert, in a movie theater. It's not enough apparently to move our leadership – our government – the people who are running this country to actually do anything. That's demoralizing," said Kerr.

Mind you, gun violence is a deeply personal issue for Kerr, whose father, Malcolm H. Kerr, was assassinated in 1984 by two gunmen outside his office in Beirut, Lebanon, where he was president of the American University of Beirut.

"We can actually do something about it. We can vote people in who actually have the courage to protect people's lives and not just bow down to the NRA because they've financed their campaign for them," said Kerr.

"Hopefully, we'll find enough people, first of all, to vote good people in, but hopefully, we can find people with courage to help our citizens remain safe and focus on the real safety issues. Not building some stupid wall for billions of dollars that has nothing to do with our safety, but actually protecting us from what truly is dangerous, which is maniacs with semi-automatic weapons just slaughtering our children. It's disgusting."

Video: Courtesy of YouTube.

In Between: Taking on gender politics without apology

On Sunday morning in Washington, D.C., my wife and I attended a sneak preview of In Between (Bar Bahar in Arabic), a bold and brassy Israeli drama written and directed by Palestinian filmmaker Maysaloun Hamoud about living Arab and female in Israel. The "in-your-face-but-not-in-your-face" film is set in freewheeling and secular Tel Aviv, where the fallout from Arab Spring has brought about a new underground of Palestinians who are enjoying never-imagined freedoms – they're caught up in a new social revolution, a new world order, if you will – yet, whose underground nightlife remains contemporary and ethnic.

In Between presents three very different women – a conservative, hijab-wearing Muslim university computer science student; a modern Muslim criminal lawyer who likes to party after hours; and a liberal, Christian underground scene DJ/bartender – who happen to share an apartment where they find themselves balancing their lives between "tradition and modernity, citizenship and culture, fealty and freedom." Each woman tries to shape her own destiny despite living in a conservative Arab society that's entrenched in patriarchy.

In In Between, there's a whole lot of young people who are thinking and behaving differently – a mixture of gay and straight culture – while breaking down sacred and sexual barriers. The film, which stars Palestinian actresses Mouna Hawa (as the beautiful extrovert Laila), Sana Jammelieh (as the artsy and closeted lesbian Salma) and Shaden Kanboura (as the somewhat näive but observant and studious Nour), is presented in Arabic and Hebrew dialogue with English subtitles and includes an exotic and pulsating electronica soundtrack. It is Hamoud's first feature-length film – she did it with Israeli funding – and it earned her a fatwa from her own people because of the frank and explicit subject matter it tackled: homosexuality, intoxication and drug use.

"I couldn't imagine this happening, but I am not surprised," said Hamoud, during a 2017 BBC Newsnight interview. "They didn't want to look in the mirror and see the ugly face that is put in front of them."

As we see during this non-rated 103-minute film, In Between also deals with a Jewish state that treats its Arab citizens with a sense of mistrust, which makes it even more of a challenge for Laila, Salma and Nour to be able to live free in a restricted society and defend their sense of independence from the familial values they no longer share.

Throughout In Between, suggests critic Susan Wloszczyna of RogerEbert.com, what is most intriguing is "how each woman is allowed to make mistakes and learn from them without any judgment on Hamoud's part." Another critic, Ella Taylor of NPR, writes that "Hamoud's narrative instincts can be broad, but she is rarely glib or coy. That she has chosen to focus squarely on internal tensions within the Arab community – the widening cultural and political gulf between the generations – is a mark of her courage, her bravado and her brutal honesty."

In his review of In Between, New York Times film critic A.O. Scott notes that the movie "is fatalistic about the local political situation, pessimistic about men and encouraged by the power of female solidarity. In other words, whether by serendipity or prophetic insight or some combination of the two, it's a perfect movie for the movement."

Adds Hamoud: "The thing that's really touched me is when women come and say 'you are inspiring for us'. I cannot ask for more than this."

In awarding In Between best debut feature film at the Haifa Film Festival, the jury described it as "a powerful creation about women fighting to shape their fate by coping with challenges, through friendship, courage, victory, and by breaking free of shackles, and the price they pay."

In an age of #MeToo, In Between takes on gender politics without apology. I highly recommend this award-winning film, which has received limited release in the U.S.

Photo: Courtesy of Film Movement. Videos: Courtesy of YouTube.

Social media maelstrom: Did FCA really use MLK's words about the value of service to sell Ram trucks? Yes.

Each year, there's no bigger stage than the Super Bowl for advertisers – and Super Bowl LII was no different. While the tone of some of this year's messages aimed for laughter and nostalgia – not to mention philanthropy in an age of Trumpian tax cuts – one advertisement in particular drew much online criticism.

During the second quarter of Sunday night's Super Bowl game between the New England Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles, American car maker Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) turned to a sermon given 50 years ago by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. about the value of service and used it as the voice-over to sell Ram trucks.

If there's a wince award to be given – based upon the impact or backlash it made on social media – this would be the winner.

The use of Dr. King's sermon, entitled "The Drum Major Instinct," was part of a five-ad campaign by FCA that also included a classic scene from "Jurassic Park" featuring actor Jeff Goldblum and Queen's much-overused anthem "We Will Rock You" to market its Jeep and Ram brands. At a combined 240 seconds, FCA tied Anheiser-Busch for second-most ad time during this year's Super Bowl, which was broadcast by NBC across the the U.S. and reached an estimated 103.4 million TV viewers, the smallest Super Bowl audience since 2009. Each 30-second Super Bowl commercial cost advertisers about $5 million.

According to AdAge, FCA's global chief marketing officer Olivier Francois is "fond of calling on historical figures and movie and music stars backed by montages of vehicles and everyday people. He has a tendency to source ideas from a wide array of agencies, often making last-minute decisions on the winners."

In "Built to Serve," which was created by Chicago-based boutique agency Highdive, it made use of an MLK speech delivered 50 years ago to the day (Feb. 4, 1968) at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta – his last major speech before he was assassinated on April 4, 1968 – in which the civil rights icon declared "everybody can be great" because everybody can serve. Throughout the ad spot, there are "26 powerful images of those serving others" – "everyday people," including a farmer, a barber, a fisherman, a teacher, students in a classroom and members of the military. There's even a firefighter lifting a child over his shoulder.

"But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant," MLK is heard (but not seen) saying, "That's the new definition of greatness. By giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve."

The ad reaches its conclusion with a message that to serve "you only need a heart full of grace. Soul generated by love." Then, the last image shown on screen is of the Ram slogan "Built to Serve."

While some liked the ad, calling it "wonderful" and "continuing on your legacy of 'on brand' storytelling," it also drew polarizing reactions, such as "who knew MLK was talking about pickup trucks this whole time" and "MLK wanted equal rights and for me to buy a Dodge Ram." A story about the Ram ad online in Huffington Post suggests "People were, understandably, not very happy with the company's attempt to profit off of one of history's greatest social just advocates."

In today's lead editorial in The New York Times, entitled "Dr. King's Words Turned Upside Down," it wrote: "Ostensibly, the Ram commercial was an appeal for people to serve. But who's kidding whom? The goal was to sell trucks, with Dr. King as pitchman."

Mind you, FCA has often relied upon using message-driven Super Bowl ads to touch on the state of the American economy and farming industry, featuring appearances or off-camera voice-overs by well-known cultural figures like Eminem, Oprah Winfrey, Bob Dylan, Clint Eastwood and Paul Harvey. These were all critically acclaimed and memorable.

However, now, one need only point toward the irony of the NFL's attempt to monetize MLK's activism while at the same time it systematically colludes against Colin Kaepernick, a black quarterback, and his protests of police brutality and systematic racism.

"Black people can't kneel and play football, but MLK should be used to sell trucks during the Super Bowl," tweeted writer and comedian Akilah Hughes. "Unbelievable."

In an interview with The New York Times published in its Monday print editions, Tim Calkins, a Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management marketing professor, said of FCA's "Built to Serve" ad: "It's the wrong mistake to make given everything that's going on in the U.S. right now. There's so much emotion right now around race in this country that this was a high-risk move, and clearly it's not going over very well.

"I think it was well intentioned, but they're going to have a lot of explaining to do," said Mr. Calkins.

Indeed, especially when you add to the disconnect that MLK's sermon touched on the danger of overspending on items like cars – not to mention people "are so often taken by advertisers."

One thing I learned from looking over a variety of social media in researching this commentary is that many viewers felt that FCA's "Built to Serve" ad, which was meant to inspire about the power of service, cooperation and community, was distasteful because it used the words and voice of a civil rights icon to advertise trucks.

Did FCA cross the line when it used MLK's voice as a means to sell trucks during its 60-second advertisement for the 2019 Ram 1500? I think it did, especially when you consider that the Black Lives Matter movement still march in the streets and NFL players are criticized for taking a knee during the National Anthem in silent protest against racism and policy brutality. I found it insulting to the memory of the revered civil rights leader.

However, if you were to ask Eric D. Tidwell, managing director of Intellectual Properties Management, the licensor of the MLK estate, you would get a different answer from mine.

In a statement released at the height of the backlash Sunday night, the King Estate said it had reviewed FCA's ad before it aired to make sure it met its standards and "found that the overall message of the ad embodied Dr. King's philosophy that true greatness is achieved by serving others.

"Thus we decided to be a part of Ram's 'Built to Serve' Super Bowl program."

Meanwhile, FCA, the parent company of Ram, defended its ad and released a statement Sunday night. It said it was "honored to have the privilege of working with the Estate of Martin Luther King Jr. to celebrate those words during the largest TV viewing event annually," and added "Estate representatives were a very important part of the creative process every step of the way."

Fine, but as The New York Times concluded about the "sheer crassness"exhibited by FCA in using MLK's voice and message to sell its Ram product and further its ideals – and I am in agreement – "He did not ask to be a huckster for a line of trucks."