TennisVideoWeird But True

Roger Federer Wins Tennis Tournament, Inexplicably Given Men In Black Suit By Will Smith

Roger Federer won the Madrid Open yesterday, defeating Tomas Berdych 3-6, 7-5, 7-5 and regaining the word No. 2 ranking from Rafael Nadal. While that’s a significant development, though, we’re really here to talk about what happened after the match was over. Part of what happened was normal: Federer celebrated and got a trophy. We’ve seen that over and over through the years. What we haven’t seen over and over through the years is this:

OK, yes, Men in Black 3 is coming out, so on the surface, “Will Smith doing a publicity tour” makes sense. But… there? To actually make him a part of the post-match ceremony so he can pimp his new movie? There are near-endless amounts of things to love in the above video: the huge ovation Smith receives upon greeting the crowd. The way that after he (impressively) delivers a speech entirely in Spanish, the announcers rave that his remarks were “very appropriate.”

But really, it’s about Roger Federer winning a Men in Black suit. It ought to be the dream of every tennis fan that Federer one day plays an actual match while wearing that suit. And if he doesn’t, we’ll at least have the memories of that one time he and Will Smith shared a moment, and the announcers grasped at straws trying to make it make sense (“Will Smith, of course, transcends his industry – as does Federer”). And it was definitely better than the usual “canned remarks from CEO of tournament sponsor” speech. Bienvenido a Madrid.

[SB Nation via Holly Anderson]

Photo via Getty