A You-Tube video showing tennis champion Roger Federer demonstrating almost super-human serving accuracy has sparked a lively debate over whether the footage was doctored.
The footage shows Federer serving a tennis ball that knocks a bottle off a film crew member’s head, twice in a row.
Filmed in Switzerland in between takes for a Gillette Fusion commercial, it shows an amused camera crew cheering on as the world’s number two tennis player smashes the tennis balls, dressed in a suit.
Federer jokes with the crew, saying “Don’t be nervous. Make sure you don’t move,” as the man tries to balance the bottle on top of his head.
In the first serve, the footage is a little hard to follow. But when he does it a second time, the camera captures the entire display in what appears to be a flawless serve of laser-like accuracy, knocking the can clean off the crewman’s head.
Neither Federer or the crewman seem bothered that a small mis-judgement could have sent the tennis ball plunging into his face.
Technology blog Mashable contacted Gillette to determine if the video was fake.
“All we’ll say at the moment is we’ll leave the ’real or fake' debate up to the viewers, but the evidence is there to see,” a Gillette spokesman replied.
{etRelate 39847,40992} So far the YouTube video has been played over one million times. Blog comments are clearly divided as to whether the footage is real or has been digitally enhanced.
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