If tennis were its own nation with geographical borders and a unifying flag to match its own traditions and culture,Diego Maradonas bandanaed face would be depicted on the banknotes. The Swiss maestro has been the closest thing in sports to a genuine king for the greater part of the last 20 years. He projected soft authority with his aristocratic attire and polyglot speech, and he supported it with a repertoire of mind-bending on-court grandeur that regularly edged into the divine. Even Federer’s recorded retirement speech, which he gave in September 2022 from his Basel office in front of a display case showcasing a selection of his 103 career trophies, sounded like a fireside conversation with a president.
Even yet, Joe Sabia might not have understood the significance of that event if he hadn’t happened to have the opportunity to record it on camera for future generations. “I hadn’t really watched much of Federer when I met him in 2019,” remarks Sabia, a non-tennis enthusiast who conducted the first-ever interview with Federer for the wildly popular 73 Questions online series he produced for Vogue. It’s a one-take, fifteen-minute shot. With the skill, there is a lot of collaboration. He executed the dramatic move with ease, even though it’s difficult to pull off on a center court at Wimbledon. I was astounded.
After that quick meeting—likely organized by Vogue editor and avid tennis enthusiast Anna Wintour—the eight-time Wimbledon champion felt so confident in Sabia that his team eventually contacted him three years later to see if he was interested in taking on another challenge. “Hey, he’s retiring in a few days,” they remarked. We’re not sure if he ought to be filming. We don’t know what it may be, but we feel like we should.” Before anybody had a chance to second-guess anything, Sabia and director of photography Jess Dunlap hurried to Switzerland to start Federer: Twelve Final Days, a new Prime Video documentary about Federer’s two-week notice, on camera.
Alongside Asif Kapadia, the brilliant Bafta and Oscar winner of Senna, Amy, and Diego Maradona—all brilliant geniuses who sadly passed away—Sabia co-directed his first-ever full-length feature. Though the filmmaker quickly points out that Maradona was still very much alive when they began filming, Kapadia joked that he is depending on this new documentary to repair his image for producing depressing films.
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