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Sunday July 3, 2005
Swiss roll
By Denis Campbell, The Observer
He's not just the best tennis player in the world, he could well go down in history as the best ever. And today, the nice man from Basle aims to grab his third Wimbledon title
Sport
compels through its drama, emotional pull, occasional heroism and habit
of throwing up the unexpected. It captivates courtesy of the skill,
timing, athleticism and mental readiness for the big moment, or not, of
its contestants. It is a battle of wits, a road to riches, a mirror on
our world and a trigger for jingoism, hooliganism and cheating, but
also for mass happiness of the most uplifting sort. Nadia Comaneci's
grace, Lance Armstrong's bloody-minded determination, Jonny Wilkinson's
deadly accuracy, Ronaldinho's trickery, Freddie Flintoff's aggression:
all thrill the senses and confirm sport's array of qualities.
And then there is Roger
Federer. Apart from gymnastics and ice-skating, discussion of sport
rarely involves the word 'beauty' or its derivatives. But
world sport has no more aesthetically pleasing performer, and few more
lethal. In most conversations about him among the tennis cognoscenti,
rapture descends and superlatives flow. Very quickly, those involved
start gushing about his sumptuous style, describing him as a genius and
comparing his displays to Old Masters, great symphonies or other works
of art. Just the other day, Simon Barnes of the Times, admittedly
Britain's most colourful sportswriter, was so overwhelmed by the manner
of the Swiss's latest victory that he opened his match report thus: 'It
is becoming increasingly apparent that Roger Federer was Leonardo da
Vinci in a previous life.' And, he added, while 'Leonardo was perhaps
the last man on earth to understand the entirety of Western thought and
culture ... Federer seeks only to defeat other tennis players, but to
do so in a way that avoids beauty is beyond him'. Federer,
already the most feted and successful player of his generation, will
today seek to establish himself as one of the sport's most illustrious
names with a third consecutive men's singles titles on the All England
Club's lush lawns. At 2pm, he faces a Centre Court showdown with Andy
Roddick, the relentlessly hard-hitting American number two seed. If he
wins, Federer will stand alongside Björn Borg and Pete Sampras as the
only men since tennis entered the open era in 1968 to capture three in
a row, and will have equalled the record of two previous champions who
will spend this afternoon as BBC commentators, Boris Becker and John
McEnroe. The
13,802 fortunate enough to have tickets, and the millions watching on
television, will see at first hand a player whom Roddick describes as
'probably the most talented person to ever carry a racket around'. Even
Rod Laver, the only man to win all four Grand Slams in a year twice,
admits he would 'be honoured to be even compared with Roger', who, he
adds, 'could be the greatest tennis player of all time'. Michael
Stich, who won Wimbledon in 1991 and is part of Radio Five Live's team
of pundits in SW19, thinks Federer already is the finest player in
history. 'He's the most talented player I've ever seen, the best
all-courts player. Better than Borg, McEnroe and the rest. Pete Sampras
is the most successful ever in terms of Grand Slam wins [14], but I
think Roger's got a better backhand and is stronger, smoother and
better on clay than Pete - a more complete player. And he plays the
more beautiful tennis.' A
Battery of statistics underlines the 23-year-old's command of a men's
game which boasts a real depth of talent in the shape of Roddick, Marat
Safin, Lleyton Hewitt and fast-emerging youngsters such as Rafael
Nadal, Richard Gasquet and Andy Murray. Federer has won his last 35
matches on grass and, more frighteningly, his last 20 finals. So far
this year, he has won seven tournaments, 90 per cent of his service
games and 76 per cent of his first service points, and dispatched
almost 400 aces. It is not that the others are poor; it is that the
polite young man from Basle is so brilliant. His
calmness on court, excellence and utter dominance evoke images of some
of sport's true greats. Stich sees Federer as a throwback to an age of
elegant, gentleman players such as Laver, and as 'very good for tennis
because of the way he plays and conducts himself'. Does he have a
weakness? If so, paradoxically, it may be an over-abundance of talent.
His abilities are so great that he is often spoilt for choice when
deciding which shot to play, which occasionally causes indecision. Some
problem. While
Federer's on-court mastery is widely appreciated, many view him as a
disappointingly bland star in the mould of a Michael Schumacher or
Michael Owen, as annoyingly nice. They lament the absence of the
dysfunction, or air of danger, which helped make Jennifer Capriati,
Monica Seles and McEnroe so fascinating. Federer is certainly humble,
sincere, generous to opponents, respectful to officials and almost
laughably typically Swiss. When
he won his first Wimbledon title in 2003, he left the champions' dinner
to grab an early night. The wildest thing he does now is listen to
AC/DC, the famously loud heavy metal group, at full volume in his car.
He has a steady girlfriend, Mirka Vavrinec, who travels with him on the
men's tour, and has shown none of broom-cupboard Becker's weakness for
female company. Unlikely
as it now seems, though, Federer, too, used to be a truculent,
back-talking, racket-hurling tennis brat, more 'you cannot be serious?'
McEnroe than the 'iceman' Borg, with whom he is often compared. As a
junior player, he admits, he was 'like a crazy maniac. I had a very bad
temper, I was very aggressive. 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'. The
cause was frustration at the gap between his undoubted prowess and his
inability to turn that into victory. 'I knew what I could do and
failure made me mad. I had two voices inside me, the devil and the
angel, I suppose, and one self couldn't believe how stupid the other
one could be. "How could you miss that?" one voice would say. Then I
would just explode. I would lose it. I was screaming and slamming
rackets. It made me feel like an idiot.' Sometimes,
his father Robert bawled at him from the side of the court to quieten
down. Occasionally, driving his son home after such behaviour, a
disgusted Federer senior would say nothing for 90 minutes. Now, in an
age of grunters and shriekers, Federer junior is one of the quietest
players on court. Born
in Basle in August 1981, Federer first picked up a racket at the age of
three at the club in nearby Münchenstein where his parents - Robert, a
drug company salesman, and South-African-born mother Lynette - played.
After hours hitting the ball off a wall, extraordinary skill soon
became apparent. His consistency across tennis's various surfaces was
honed by competing on clay in the summer and carpet courts in the
winter. Victory
in the boys' singles at Wimbledon in 1998 seemed to signal the overdue
conversion of promise into achievement. He turned pro, established
himself on the ATP Tour, and in 2001 made the wider world take notice
by beating Sampras over five sets in the second round in SW19, ending
Wimbledon's king of kings run of 31 consecutive triumphs there. But
still his record in tennis's four Grand Slams remained poor. The
consensus was that he did not have the stamina, or the game, to
withstand the rigours of a big two-week tournament. It
took tragedy to strike before Fededer realised his full talent. In the
summer of 2002, Peter Carter, his first coach and the captain of
Switzerland's Davis Cup team, was killed in a car crash in South
Africa. 'He is the one person who truly opened my eyes to what I could
achieve, because maybe I was not taking the game seriously enough at
times.' Still just 20, Federer was deeply affected. He had never been
to a funeral before, and he also felt guilty for having urged his
mentor to undertake the trip. 'I lost my fire,' he says. He
found it again during a Davis Cup contest against Morocco,
singlehandedly securing victory for his country. He began winning when
it mattered. In 2003, he burst into tears of joy while being
interviewed by Sue Barker after receiving the Wimbledon trophy - and
then dedicated his victory to Carter. 'Whenever I win, particularly big
matches, I'm thinking of him for sure.' Faultlessly
gracious, Federer also has supreme confidence, an iron will and
singular outlook. He sacked his coach, didn't replace him and still won
three of last year's Big Four. Unusually, he is not managed by one of
the big sports talent agencies. Home remains Switzerland. He has met
Aids sufferers and township children in South Africa through his own
charity. His
mother is his agent, while Mirka, a former player who had to retire
through injury, - arranges his media duties, which he always
undertakes. During the last fortnight, she has washed the dishes and
tidied up at their rented house in Wimbledon Village as usual. He is
resolutely undomesticated, though last year she scored a minor victory
by dragging him to the local Sainsbury's in a taxi to help get their
weekly shopping. Hewitt
played well in his semi-final against the Swiss on Friday and still was
helpless to withstand his opponent's masterclass of power, subtlety of
touch and unerring positional sense. The bad news for Roddick is that
Wimbledon is Federer's favourite tournament, and he desperately wants
that third victory. After losing to him in the quarter-finals, Fernando
Gonzalez of Chile said what everyone in the locker-room by now
privately believes. ' Playing
the best player in the world always brings out the best in me, but
Roger is something completely different. In my opinion, he is
unbeatable at Wimbledon; he does not have a single weakness.' Roger Federer
DoB: 8 August, 1981 (Basle, Switzerland) Girlfriend: Mirka Vavrinec (they met at the 2000 Olympics) Hobbies: Golf, football, skiing, Playstation, music (AC/DC, Lenny Kravitz) and cards Food: Tomatoes and mozzarella di buffala, gnocchi and gorgonzola, salad, cheese
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