Roger Federer won his record eighth title at the Gerry Halle Open this past weekend, but his biggest victory in recent weeks may have more to do with emojis than tennis.
Federer has shown himself to be a fan of the small images, using them with abandon on his Twitter page. Here are a few examples:
— Roger Federer (@rogerfederer) June 12, 2015
CHAMP @stanwawrinka pic.twitter.com/UXeplV2juw
— Roger Federer (@rogerfederer) June 7, 2015
Spring in Switzerland pic.twitter.com/1Pt0Z9fQCw
— Roger Federer (@rogerfederer) May 10, 2015
Clearly quite familiar with the emoji keyboard, Federer has expressed disappointment with the lack of a popcorn emoji. He's been somewhat of a champion for the cause:
Watching the #Masters from Monte Carlo #whyistherenopopcornemoji?
— Roger Federer (@rogerfederer) April 11, 2015
As it turns out, Federer wasn't the only one hungry for a popcorn emoji. The website emojipedia.org, a source for all things emoji, tweeted this at Federer in April:
@rogerfederer Hearing you, Roger. Popcorn is on the candidate list for Unicode 8. So it could be http://t.co/RfdfTNqUQk
— Emojipedia (@Emojipedia) April 11, 2015
The Unicode 8 is a list of 37 new emojis that was approved last week by the Unicode Consortium. So we could be seeing a popcorn emoji soon, but first Apple, Microsoft and Google must update their software.
This news had Federer beaming:
Apparently, the POP emoji is coming after all #progress #ThisChangesEverything https://t.co/2Phcr7ltfw
— Roger Federer (@rogerfederer) June 19, 2015
Federer isn't the only athlete who should be thrilled with the new list of emojis. This update, should it be put into effect on iOS, Android, OS X and Windows, would also include hockey and field hockey sticks, a volleyball and a badminton racquet.