Charitable aces

The world of tennis is lucky to be populated by some of the best leaders in any sport. Look at the stars who came together to raise money for the victims in Haiti as such short notice. It helps that the fellows at the top, apart from being fantastic players, were also raised well, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal being at the forefront of this. Kudos to their parents!

Roger Federer played the role of master of ceremonies. Andy Roddick doubled as a stand-up comic. Serena Williams was laughing all the way.

The fundraiser for earthquake victims on Sunday -- a brainchild of Federer and dubbed "Hit for Haiti" -- came on the eve of the Australian Open and raised more than $185,000, an amount that organizers expected would increase.

Federer, who has won a record 15 Grand Slam titles, teamed up with reigning Australian Open champion Serena Williams and Australia's Lleyton Hewitt and Samantha Stosur. Their opponents were 2009 winner Rafael Nadal, 2008 winner Novak Djokovic, Andy Roddick and U.S. Open champion Kim Clijsters.

Update: On his SI.com mailbag, Jon Wertheim talked about the event.

The CliffsNotes version: Federer sees the Haiti disaster on the news. "Let's do something." He fires off texts to players from Rafael Nadal to Andy Roddick to Novak Djokovic to Serena Williams. Tennis Australia makes the court available for an impromptu benefit on Sunday -- the day before a Grand Slam begins. Jim Courier agrees to be chair umpire. Through a quick publicity blast -- thanks, technology! -- a capacity crowd pays $10 to watch. There is no corporate sponsor or tie-in. This is not the "foundation benefit," whereby you pay your buddies an appearance, hold a lavish party and give the "proceeds" to charity. This was not some slickly packaged event run by a management agency. The alphabet soup of agencies didn't get involved and make sure no one logos were bigger than the other and their name came first on the self-congratulatory press release. Mary Carillo used the word "organic."

Also note the cause here: There are no Haitian players on tour, no event in Haiti, no Haitian sponsor, no ulterior motive. This is simply: Something horrible happened on the other side of the world, we recognize that and we want to use our platform to help. And note which players showed. Next time you rip "ill-tempered Serena" or "selfish Djokovic," keep this event in mind.

Just a great day for the sport, a great showing from the top players starting with Federer, a great indication of what can happens when tennis cuts through the in-fighting and everyone works for a greater cause. At the risk of getting carried away, events like this ought to convince the players that, when they work together, they have the power, the leverage and capacity to cut through the tennis clutter and take charge.

Here's a brief video of the event.



From the same Wertheim mailbag: How cool is this? As recently as November 2009, Federer and Nadal practiced with each other, clearly supporting the notion that they are not antagonists off the court.