Gil Ofarim
As a child, tennis is one of his favorite memories
Gil Ofarim spent many hours on the tennis court when he was a child.
© Timm / face to face / ImageCollect
"What if …", Gil Ofarim philosophizes from time to time. Before he discovered his love for music, he was primarily devoted to tennis.
Gil Ofarim (38, "Alles auf Hope") is best known in Germany as a musician. His most beautiful childhood memory has little to do with sounds or lyrics. In the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung" he recalls: "I stayed up all night when the men played in Australia or at the US Open. I wanted to be like them, I wanted to become a professional tennis player." At the tender age of three, he received his first tennis racket and a ball.
"My greatest role model was Andre Agassi, I inhaled every serve and every movement of the top stars back then," says Ofarim. For him, the tennis greats at the time were rock stars. Does he regret having taken a different path with his music career? "Sometimes I have a very, very brief moment in which I think: what if …", the 38-year-old philosophizes. "But in our generation nobody would have got past Rafa (Rafael Nadal, editor's note) or Roger (Federer) anyway." The artist doesn't regret "that I quit, but I miss it sometimes".