Perth: Roger Federer. Bongo drums. An unlikely combination has just gone viral.
Fans at this week's Hopman Cup have been enthusiastically drumming to a super-imposed set of what are officially called "Afro-Cuban percussion instruments", but may henceforth be known as Federer's virtual "racket".
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Roger Federer took to playing the bongos with great enthusiam when the camera focused on him in the stands at the Hopman Cup in Perth on Wednesday night.
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Federer plays the bongos
Roger Federer took to playing the bongos with great enthusiam when the camera focused on him in the stands at the Hopman Cup in Perth on Wednesday night.
The 17-time grand slam champion was drawn into the audience-amusing stunt on Wednesday night as he sat in the courtside box at Perth Arena watching Swiss teammate Belinda Bencic defeating German Andrea Petkovic, Federer having earlier lost his own singles match in three tiebreak sets to German teenager Alexander Zverev.
To say he answered the Bongo-cam challenge with enthusiasm would be understating things. Even for the master of on-court entertainment, it was quite the performance.
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At least I have a backup career as a bongo player 💪🏻 pic.twitter.com/C8xl0pW9Pu
— Roger Federer (@rogerfederer) January 4, 2017
"I mean, it's easy to do the bongo like that when Belinda played as well as she did in the singles, so I'm happy I didn't throw her off and she was still able to win," he joked after the Swiss pair had clinched the tie - and remained in contention for a place in Saturday's final against the US - with an entertaining mixed doubles victory.
Still, it's to be hoped that Federer's seven-year-old twin daughters, Charlene Riva and Myla Rose, had joined their younger brothers Lenny and Leo in bed by that time, in order to avoid what was a rather embarrassing Dad moment.
Back home in Switzerland, Federer's own father, Robert, felt the need to intervene.
"My Dad wrote me an email and said 'can you please stop that right now'," Federer laughed. "And I was like 'are you serious?', and he was like 'this is serious'." Federer, clearly, was not, when he joked that his job in future ties would be "to entertain everyone". ie. "OK. I'll first win my singles and then I'll go crazy."
Hard to imagine, and Zverev, indeed, was a more subdued, reluctant drummer when his time came.
For Federer, though, it has been not just a successful comeback from six months sidelined with a knee injury, but a PR triumph,15 years after his last trip to Perth for a 2002 Hopman Cup he contested with then-girlfriend, now-wife Mirka.
In return for an estimated seven-figure appearance fee, the player regarded as the greatest ever has been a walking, dancing, talking, and now drumming advertisement for Tourism WA.
A family day trip to Rottnest Island? "It was very hot, but it was beautiful."
A promotional visit to famous Cottesloe Beach: "Yeah, that was hot and it was windy."
The kids' visit to Perth Zoo? "Yeah, I was sleeping then."
And the musical theatre experience at Singing in the Rain: "Yeah, it was raining aces today, so it was very fitting."
Ha. Boom, boom. Or perhaps, well, a drum roll will do?