Geneva: Roger Federer may have seen his dream of the Olympic gold ran this week, but he can celebrate T-shirts, rackets, and shoes from his trophy-Laden tennis career proven treasure in the auction.
Sports legends see each item that goes under the hammer at a two-year-old Christie auction for sale, sweeping £ 3.4 million ($ 4.7 million, 3.98 million euros).
Combined results from online and live auctions – more than three times more than the target of £ 1 million – will go to the Roger Federer Foundation, which supports educational projects in South Africa and Swiss origin.
“I am overwhelmed by the generosity and enthusiasm of support from around the world,” Federer said in a statement.
The auction of the grand slam winner’s career item 20 times occurred in two phases.
Direct sales on June 23 in London focused on Federer’s career at four Grand Slams: Wimbledon and Australia, France and the US Open.
Further online sales from June 23 to July 14 showed 300 lots of other tournaments covering 21 years – since the performance of his first Olympic in Sydney 2000 Games, who was only 19.
Items sold online found from 44 countries and around six continents , said Christie.
The spotlight of online sales is a set of three racquets used in the 2019 Wimbledon championship, which sells for £ 162,500 – more than 23 times above their estimation of £ 7,000-10,000.
“The price achieved has been extraordinary,” Federer said.
“We started collecting items that accompanied me in court because we thought that maybe one day we could do something meaningful to them,” he said.
He said he and his wife Mirka “humble to see that the decisions we made would make a deep difference with so many children.” The Roger Federer collection is the most important single sports memorabilia collection that has ever come to the market, Christie’s representative told AFP before auction.
Federer, 40 years old on August 8, has hoped to secure his first Olympic gold medal in the upcoming Tokyo match, but announced Tuesday that he had resigned after “setbacks” in his recovery from a knee injury.