This cover!!! Roger Federer covers the new issue of Town & Country and dear God, this cover is crazy. Federer is one of the most elegant athletes in the world, but he’s not some turtleneck-wearing dandy who does the Charleston on the cover of Town & Country. What happened to you, Roger? You changed, bro. Thankfully, the rest of the photos are much better (I don’t know why T&C didn’t use any of those pics for the cover) and the interview is pretty interesting. I don’t think of Roger as much of a talker and I can’t remember the last time he gave a major magazine interview, so here we go. You can read the full piece here and here are some highlights:

He’s not chasing another Grand Slam: “No, that’s more of a press thing. They love numbers.” He is not, he insists, obsessed with Grand Slams. “I like playing tennis. I like everything about it.”

Why he won’t retire: “I didn’t expect to become a professional tennis player. Everything after top 100 and even top 10 for me was, like, way beyond. Yeah, I was joking about winning Wimbledon when I was younger, but did I ever really, really believe that it was going to happen? Probably not. But let’s just sort of dream big and give it a chance, you know? So everything, the whole last 10 years, has been more than I could ever ask for. And for that reason, I think, I have this pleasure and this fun, because I remember how it feels to play on Court 23. I remember how sad and angry I was when I was younger. I remember how much work I put into it. And that’s why I don’t want to give it away just like that.”

He makes winning look easy: “I look like I’m so laid-back, I love everything, it all came so easily for me. But it wasn’t like that at all… I wasn’t Tiger Woods, or Rafa, or -Hingis—one of those genius superkids who you knew one day would be a champion.”

Making the decision to travel with his then-girlfriend, now-wife Mirka: “She was missing me on the road, and I was missing her when she was home… It was an interesting time. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner together, 365 days of the year. And, yeah, we loved every moment of it and still do.”

When he does retire: He’d like to live in Switzerland, “retreat a little bit” and be “happy not to be recognized so much.” He can imagine finding another job in tennis, “helping kids, juniors, that kind of stuff.”

On his legendary loss to Rafael Nadal at the 2008 Wimbledon finals: Federer recalls that, in the immediate aftermath of the match, “it was sort of tragic” and that he returned to his hotel to eat pizza, despondent. But when he headed to America for his next tournament, everyone wanted to talk about his battle with Nadal. He soon began to understand that millions of people had watched the final and thought “it was amazing.” He started to see past the loss and accept that the world had fallen in love with him as an athlete at a moment of professional disappointment. Fans, he says, “relate to you sometimes more when you lose. And then I think I got unbelievable support from 2008 onward. They wanted to see me win again.”

[From Town & Country]

This is actually a really excellent article – so good, in fact, I can’t believe they went with THAT cover. For even the casual Federer watcher/fan, it’s a great read and he’s extremely humble and self-aware. Self-possessed as well.

At the beginning of the article, there’s also an interesting story about how Roger and his wife Mirka traveled to Berkshire just before Wimbledon this year to have lunch with Carole and Michael Middleton. Apparently, he was introduced to Pippa in 2012 and now he’s somewhat close to the Middleton family. Which is weird, because people always said that Pippa and Kate were anti-Federer. Huh.

Max Vadukul/Town & Country.