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Sunday August 1, 2004
It'll all end in tears...
Last month he took his second successive men's singles title at Wimbledon and cried on court - again. The morning after his victory, a tired but jubilant Roger Federer talked candidly to Tim Adams about fame, his temper, the pain he felt at the death of his coach and why he will always live in Switzerland
Interview by Tim Adams, The Observer
What
do you do the morning after you have won your second Wimbledon title in
such glorious style? Do you sleep off a long night of champagne and
celebration? Do you relive the match shot by shot in your head while
your girlfriend serves you a lazy breakfast in bed? Or perhaps you
wander down to the village shop and pick up the papers for posterity? If
you are Roger Federer you get up at 6.30 and start doing interviews for
Swiss TV. Then you sit down, on the patio of your luxurious borrowed
house in SW19, blink a little into the sun and try to put into words
for the bloke from The Observer what was achieved so effortlessly
without them the previous day. Tennis
players have very little time for reflection. Federer is flying home
this afternoon to a hero's reception before heading on to his next
tournament, the Swiss Open in Gstaad (an event he will also win). He
had a drink or two at the champions' dinner, he says, but it was not
like the old days and there was no dancing with the ladies' champion,
Maria Sharapova. In the end he got an early night and woke up feeling
what, exactly? An
intermittent grin, that comes over him unexpectedly every few minutes,
betrays a weary and irrepressible satisfaction, but beyond that, well,
'it's so hard to say if it's better than last year or what. It's
definitely not worse. I thought this year I had to fight much harder.
In the final and in the quarters against Lleyton Hewitt. Last year I
did not have to think too much to win, but this time around, against
Andy [Roddick] in particular, I had to change one or two things around.
So the satisfaction is immense to be able to change and still win.' There
has been a good deal of talk, I suggest, over the previous fortnight of
Federer reaching a level of genius, such is the range and variety of
his shots. Does it feel like that to him? 'At the moment I seem able to
play with a lot of touch and, I think, a lot of natural ability,' he
tells me. 'I often decide what I will do as it happens and change
things instinctively, and people recognise that. But genius? It is
certainly nice to hear that. It is even better in the sense that for
ages people were saying about me 'this guy will be number one, this guy
will win Wimbledon' and so on. But I had not done it. Now I have, so
that feels good.' As
with previous successes, Federer revealed how much he cared about his
victory when he burst into tears in his chair, after clinching match
point. Has he always cried like this, or is it just a Wimbledon thing? 'Well,'
he says, smiling, 'I don't cry at movies too often. But on the tennis
court I find it hard to keep my emotions together. I used to cry a lot
when I lost matches, which was a little embarrassing. As a teenager I
would cry after almost every match I lost for about half an hour. Now I
don't do that, thankfully. Hardly ever. I think I might have cried if I
lost to Roddick yesterday. Certainly I would have been fighting the
tears. But I don't usually cry after a win. And I'd rather I hadn't,
particularly in front of millions and millions of people watching on
television. I don't know why it happens. It is probably just because of
the relief. The fact that it all paid off, all the effort, finally.' The final was also the 24th consecutive match he had won on grass. It seems that it is fast becoming his favourite surface. 'Well,
I love it certainly,' he says. 'It is very natural, very quiet, very
soft. It suits my style in that sense. My backhand stays low. I used to
think serve and volley was the only way to win on grass, but now the
return is too good for that game, so I mix it up quite a bit more.' During
this year's tournament I heard Federer saying that there were still a
few things he needed to work on in his game. Then, when pressed, he
could only come up with one slight fault he had identified, which was
an occasional inability to hit a high backhand return with full power.
Was that really it, the sum of all his weaknesses? He
laughs. 'Well most of the rest of my game is pretty good. But for me it
is my mental strength that I need to work on most. It used to be hard
for me, being down in a match and having to come back. That's what I
have learnt how to do. I was always such a good front runner, I would
win the first set and then finish off my opponents quickly. But if I
got a set down and a break down I would struggle. Now, I can do that
thing where I say to myself, "Rog, you're not far away here, just get
your act together..."' These
days the closest Federer gets to letting off steam is playing AC/DC at
full volume in his car after matches, but there was a time when he did
not seem so relaxed, when it all seemed to matter too much to him.
Certainly as a junior, he says, he was 'like a crazy maniac'. That's quite hard to imagine, now. 'Honestly,'
he says, the picture of calm. 'I had a very bad temper, I was very
aggressive. Always testing the limits, always arguing over calls, but
never cheating. Always upset with myself. Angry at the conditions all
the time. It got to the point where my parents threatened to stop
driving me to tournaments if I carried on like this. They were too
embarrassed to be seen with me.' They
get on fine now. The only child of Robert Federer, a sales manager for
a pharmaceutical company, and Lynette, his South Africa-born wife,
Roger was born on 8 August 1981, in Basle, Switzerland. He
first picked up a racket at the age of three when he watched his father
and mother play at their local club in Basle. Afterwards, like the
young Borg, he spent hours hitting the ball against a garage door, in a
solitary pursuit of perfection. If
anything, sport came almost too easily to the young Federer. He was
singled out from the earliest age as the kid who could do anything, the
prodigy. He says he probably could have made it as a professional
footballer, but he was so good at tennis that it was inconceivable he
would not pursue it as a career. He developed an all-court game by
playing on clay in summer and fast carpet in winter. By the time he was
10 or 11, he was already being talked of as a future champion (the
junior events did indeed come thick and fast - Federer won the junior
singles and doubles at Wimbledon in 1998). As
a boy, his hero was Boris Becker, whom he admired because of his will
to win. 'People used to say to me, "What about Edberg, he's so classy,
so cool", but for a long time I could not see that...' Federer's
fury raged for years. When he played in front of a crowd he seemed to
go to pieces. 'I would lose it,' he tells me. 'I was screaming and
slamming rackets... it made me feel like an idiot.' A few key incidents
changed his outlook and cooled his temper. But he also responded to the
influence of his Australian coach and mentor, Peter Carter. Federer
had first worked with Carter when he was 12 years old. The Australian
subsequently became the Swiss Davis Cup captain. 'He is the one person
who truly opened my eyes,' Federer says, 'to what I could achieve,
because maybe I was not taking the game seriously enough at times. He
was a very good friend and he taught me so much about technique, too.
He improved my game so much.' Until
he began to listen to Carter, Federer says he did not really know how
to get the most out of his game. One of his difficulties was that he
had always had too much choice. 'My range of shots was a problem. You
get a slow ball, and you think, "What am I going to do with this?" If
your game is limited, it's simple, you have a shot for each situation
and you play it. I had too many options and I had to learn to choose
the right shot and the right tactics, not just the most spectacular. I
have to admit that when I joined the professional tour, I liked to
think I was bringing something special and I would show off...' Carter
helped to make him understand that this was not how to win tennis
tournaments. Two years ago, on the eve of a Davis Cup match, Carter was
killed in a car crash while on safari in South Africa. Federer was
inconsolable. He had persuaded his friend to take the holiday that had
resulted in his death and he felt lost without him. For a while his
game disintegrated, but when he put it back together, he was stronger,
more grown up, perhaps. When he won his first Wimbledon last year, he
dedicated the victory to the memory of his coach. I
wonder if he still finds inspiration in that loss? 'Certainly Peter is
still very strong in my heart and in my memories,' he says. 'And I
still can't get over what happened. It has been very hard for me to go
through this. I have not lost anyone else close to me. I had never been
to a funeral before, so it was such a big shock. I still think of him
every day. And whenever I win, particularly big matches like yesterday,
I'm thinking of him for sure.' Since
Carter's death, Federer has been playing without a coach. He is unusual
on the tour for going it alone, particularly in the grand slam events.
But where most consider a trainer to be a necessity, he remains
satisfied with this arrangement, at least for now. 'I feel so good
right now, I can't see why a coach would help, but we'll see what
happens later.' Coaching
is not the only area of the game in which Federer likes to do things
his own way. While some players travel with retinues that would not
look out of place on a state visit, Federer tries to keep his followers
down to a select few. This week he has been sharing the same house in
which Pete Sampras used to stay. With him are his Swiss girlfriend,
Mirka, a former player and hitting partner of Martina Hingis, and his
physiotherapist. 'Mirka
used to play tennis and sometimes she gives me a second opinion on
things.' She also takes care of all of Federer's press and PR
arrangements, too, principally making sure none of it gets in the way
of winning tennis tournaments. His
mum and sister were on Centre Court to see him win, but his dad stayed
at home in Basle. 'I think it's too much for him,' Federer explains,
smiling. 'He gets too emotional. He prefers to barbecue at home with
friends and see the match on TV... Also they are all much more
superstitious than me and because he did not come last year he felt he
should not come this year either.' I
remember a comment that John McEnroe once made about how being the
number one player in the world was sometimes a lonely place to be. I
wonder if Federer feels that the other players treat him differently
now that he is so clearly the man to beat? 'The
other players want to be where you are, certainly, but I think I'm
quite an open and easy going guy. I speak three languages fluently
[English, French and German] so I talk to everyone and I try not to
offend anyone, so I hope there is no jealousy in the locker room. It is
true it's a much more busy life as number one. I certainly had to get
used to that.' Unlike many of the great European players of the recent
past he has resisted the temptation to move to Monte Carlo. 'I like to
be at home in Basle. I just bought a place with Mirka there. And I
don't see the point of moving just to avoid tax.' The
money itself is important, he says, but it has already long since
ceased to be a distraction. 'As a young Swiss man, of course,' he says,
smiling, 'it is always satisfying to know that you have a healthy bank
balance. And of course that you can meet your dreams in terms of cars
and the homes that you have. The places you can stay.' But that is
about as far as his material wish-fulfilment extends. 'My fantasies now
are all about tennis,' he says. For
now, he is concentrating on the rest of the year. One major goal is an
Olympic medal. He was fourth in Sydney, so he does not want to miss out
again. 'It's
great for tennis players, because it is so different from the regular
tour. It is really a thrill for me to talk with other athletes from
other sports and see what they have to say.' And, yes, he will stay in
the Olympic village. 'After
all,' he says, 'it's probably the closest I will ever come to being a
student, to living the life of an average 22-year-old...' He
smiles and goes off to get ready for his next flight, his next
tournament, his next triumph. Federer is many things, but average will
never be one of them. · Tim Adams is the author of Being John McEnroe (Yellow Jersey Press)
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