One Of Our Own

Raise your hand if you never read Jon Wertheim's weekly column over at SI? I don't see many hands. No surprise there. One of our regulars sent him an email and it got a published response. If he wants to tell you who he posts here as, that's up to him. But I can tell you without any doubt that Stephen Thomas from Greensboro, North Carolina, is one of our own.

Fed's great. We get it. But come on -- sporting a new jacket with "15" on it minutes after surviving a match he probably should not have won? Why won't the media call him on this?
-- Stephen Thomas, Greensboro, N.C.

• I'll call him on that. Anyone who breaks the all-time record for majors, winning the Wimbledon final 16-14 in the fifth set, deserves a day of unconditional love. But now that it's Wednesday -- and 72 hours have elapsed -- I'll join the many of you who wrote in critiquing Federer's ridiculous attire.

As we said a few weeks back, the guy's tennis might be incomparable but his accessorizing leaves a lot to be desired. First, there was the gold man purse, the kind of accoutrement that begs for ridicule. Next, there was the Sergeant Pepper jacket. A friend asked me if it were "an inside joke kind of thing," and sadly I had to report that it wasn't. The jacket was, of course, covering a gold-striped shirt and shorts. Plus, there were the gold shoes, embroidered with Federer's initials. For a sport that still needs to shed its country club perception, it doesn't help when the top player looks like he was dressed by Bruno.

The piece de resistance, however, was that "15" jacket Federer donned immediately after winning Sunday's final, an article of clothing that simultaneously managed to be presumptuous, self-aggrandizing and sensationally tacky. A penny for Andy Roddick's thoughts, knowing that someone considered him such an unworthy opponent that the celebratory outfit had already been embroidered and carried onto the court. That it was followed, at least on American television, by a Federer NetJets ad was somehow fitting. (Good thing we're not in a recession and concerned about, you know, environmental impact.)

Beyond the fashion police ridicule, I think there's a bigger issue here. Who exactly is tasked with Federer's image these days? Why does this person have a job? And why is Federer allowing Nike's agenda to undercut an image that, much like his old attire, needed no further ornamentation? Here was a guy once lauded -- very rightfully -- as a populist champ, an unparalleled player who still projected modesty and quintessentially Swiss stoicism. This Rick Reilly column (which compares Federer's plain folk appeal to the gaudy opulence and crass consumption of Tiger Woods) nails it. That column was from 2007, and reading it now, it seems mighty dated.

Whose bright idea was it to transform that thoroughly likable guy into King Bling? Did the Nike marketing data really indicate that kids would warm to all those elitist touches? Is the gold man purse making a surprise comeback? This is the personification of "gilding the lilly." It does not say "elegance" any more than a fleur-de-lis back tattoo says "French." Here's hoping it's a phase and Federer takes back some ownership of his portrayal. I've gotten a ton of mail on this and I know I'm not alone when I say this: Roger, we'd rather look at your titles.

Congrats, Stephen.

Here's a related article oddman sent to me: Why Roger Federer has become a preening poser in the emperor's new clothes