Roger Federer sets sail with fan club on Lake Lucerne

Everybody look at me, 'cause I'm sailing on a boat ... with Roger Federer? The all-time great treated 280 of his most loyal fans to a once-in-a-lifetime experience recently with a sail on the cruise ship Diamant around Lake Lucerne in central Switzerland.

A report by Simon Graf in the Swiss newspaper "Tages-Anzeiger," published on Wednesday, gave all the details of the meet-up, which was organized earlier this month by Federer's management on personal invitation of the Swiss star himself. The attendees all came from Federer's official fan club "fans4roger," and hailed from far-flung places including Brazil, India, Japan, the United States and Australia, as well as all over Europe.

Federer had routinely met with members of "fans4roger" over the years, most notably at the Swiss Indoors tournament in Basel in notoriously-private affairs where no cell phones were allowed, and after his official retirement at Laver Cup last year, the group asked his management if it would be possible to invite him to a final event.

“We are known for not making a big deal out of everything,” Doris Töpfer, one of the fan club's chief organizers, told Graf.

That theme continued for the final meet-up: The members were told in April the September dates, so to keep their schedules clear, and details were largely kept secret until the group arrived at the lake.

The fan club began in 2005, but will be dissolved at the end of the year. But they, like Federer, went out in style: After getting on the boat at the first stop in Meggenhorn with his parents Lynette and Robert, Federer gave the attendees a signed baseball cap, a personalized photo with each guest, and chatted them up for about four hours in all. He also shot a video for Swiss Tourism while he was on board.

Federer disembarked the ship one stop before the end of its voyage, as the group stayed together for another two hours and enjoyed a pasta dinner.

“We will remember this farewell very fondly,” a fan named Loeffel from Emmental, near Bern, said. "It was the icing on the cake. Especially since the weather was perfect too.”