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January 14, 2006
Perfect Federer admits to hard days on court
By Linda Pearce, The Age
The world's most immaculate tennis player also
appreciates his life's imperfect moments, the flawed practice
sessions, the bad days. Linda Pearce reports.
A PERFECT day for Roger Federer would include some time at the
beach, a spa treatment, then a relaxed, romantic dinner with his
girlfriend, Mirka Vavrinec.
Yet the world’s most immaculate tennis player also
appreciates his life’s imperfect moments, the flawed practice
sessions, the bad days. There are times, he says, when he walks on
court feeling so fabulous, and knowing he is hitting the ball so
well, that he understands the chances of defeat are minimal.
Federer reveals this matter-of-factly, as if he has won five of
the past eight grand slam titles. Or 201 of his past 213 tournament
matches. Or something equally preposterous.
"But there’s also days where I feel like tennis is very
hard for me," Federer said. "In practice often I get this feeling
like, ‘Oh, it’s really hard for me to get to feel the
ball, to put the balls away, or return well’.
"I have these days when I just feel, you know, shocking, and
I’m happy to still feel that because it would be a little
weird if I wouldn’t have that sometimes."
So now you know. Mr Perfect is not quite that, even if the
beach-spa-candles ideal reveals more than a hint of snaginess.
Federer has been coached by two Australians — the late
Peter Carter and now part-timer Tony Roche — but he’s no
blokey bloke. Thankfully. He is too cool, polite, polished. But has
all this time spent with Rochey and friends Australianised Roger?
Even just a little bit? "No," Federer said with a laugh. "No, not
yet."
It is Thursday afternoon and, having completed news conferences
in three languages, Federer is waiting in the players’ lounge
at the AAMI Kooyong Classic, watching the TV monitor. He rises,
smiles with recognition, asks where best it would suit to chat.
Every question is answered thoughtfully, directly and at length,
even though Federer has just finished a twirl through a corporate
marquee, and there is another interview to come.
As a boy, he dreamt only of playing, of centre court. He did not
expect the endless media and sponsor commitments and all the other
obligations, but is pleased to have grown comfortably into the
role, and is considered by the ATP to be the best off-court No. 1
the game has ever had.
"My results came at the right time — Wimbledon 2003 I was
already 22, so I wasn’t a baby, and I was kind of used to the
hype around me, because I’d beaten (Pete) Sampras a couple of
years before that," he said. "Everything came at a good speed."
Vavrinec is his constant companion, his media manager, his
travel agent, his organiser. The pair’s relationship began at
the Sydney Olympics, and they share an apartment in Basle.
Vavrinec’s own playing career was curtailed by injury, and
she has worked for Team Federer — mum Lynette helps to run his
charity, and dad Robert arranges his tournament schedule, although
IMG has been back running the global marketing operation since
September — for much of the time since. It is an unusual
arrangement, and not necessarily a permanent one.
"I told Mirka if tomorrow she wakes up and says, ‘Look,
I’m sick and tired of talking to the media and everybody, I
told her we can change it’, and I think that’s important
to know that she can always pull out.
"When I won my first Wimbledon, it was phone call after phone
call, and I’m like, ‘Is this how it is supposed to be or
what? To be at the top and everybody just stalking us or whatever,
and you can never put down your phone?’
"But after a while we get used to it, and we know when to shut
off the telephone and when to not open emails, and so spend time
together, not always with something else."
All of which, of course, makes perfect sense, as does his
dismissal of the notion, aired most recently by Pat Cash, that
Federer’s greatest threat is not Lleyton Hewitt, or Andy
Roddick, or even a fit Rafael Nadal or Marat Safin. It is a more
insidious opponent: boredom.
"I mean, sometimes it is hard to get up in the morning, and say,
‘OK, let’s do it all over again’, but I think every
player lives through that," Federer said.
"So for me, my dream came true by becoming No. 1 in the world,
winning on the big stages and so on, and I think once you’ve
sniffed a little bit of that air out there on the big stages, you
always want more of it, and you can’t get enough.
"That’s what happened for me, I enjoy it so much, and I
think for me to now just say ‘OK, now it’s getting a
little boring’, that would be a totally wrong approach and I
don’t feel this way. I’m not even happy about it because
I think it’s just normal that you don’t get bored."
There are other theories, and Pete Sampras — he of the
record 14 grand slam titles, the unsurpassed six years finishing at
No. 1 — has said that Federer’s only competition now is
the record books (which, by extension, means Sampras himself).
Federer does not deny he has an eye on history, even if just "a
little bit", and that two years at No. 1 has given him an even
greater appreciation of what Sampras achieved.
The 24-year-old has had a pair of superb seasons, and is keen to
point out he was No. 2 (to Roddick) by just a small margin at the
end of 2003. But with such excellence comes the acknowledgement,
too, of how high the bar has been set.
"For this to always keep up, I’ve got to play extremely
well," he said. "Just ‘well’ is not good enough for the
record books, you’ve got to play incredibly well.
"I’ve broken records, I’ve equalled records, I’ve
done great stuff in the past, but basically I'm still only halfway
to the very best. Obviously I've got years left in my career, and
the last couple of years have been as good as anybody in the record
books, but keeping it up is hard."
At this point, there is no choice but to raise it, get it out
there: the French Open. Sampras retired without winning one, and
Martina Hingis joked last week about "those darn things", just as
Ivan Lendl has a nasty gap in his cabinet where he would have
lovingly dusted some Wimbledon winner's silverware.
Only five men in history — Donald Budge, Fred Perry, Rod
Laver, Roy Emerson and Andre Agassi — have completed the
quadrella, and only Budge and Laver have done so in a calendar
year.
Federer has three Wimbledon trophies, two from the US Open, one
from Australia — but he has reached only one semi-final, last
year, at Roland Garros. He grew up playing on clay, and counts the
Hamburg Masters among his 34 career tournament victories. And yet,
Nadal, the astonishing Spanish teenager, turned up in Paris last
year and promptly won the claycourt major at his first attempt.
So how much does Federer need a French crown to sign off on his
greatness, perhaps as the best of all time? It is all very well to
have opponents such as German former world No. 4 Nicolas Kiefer
proclaiming in awe that "we play on Earth, he plays on another
planet", but there is much — perhaps everything — to be
said for owning a full grand slam set.
There is no question that winning a fourth consecutive Wimbledon
title would mean more to Federer, personally, but he agrees that a
triumph at Roland Garros would add more in a broader sense. It is
more necessary. In fact, it would "make" his career.
"Winning all four, it's something very few people have achieved,
Agassi was the last one to do it and look what an aura he has
around him," Federer said. "I'm definitely aiming for that but I
can only try, and I hope it's going to work.
"This last year was the first time I've really given myself a
chance at the French, before that I'd never really played so well,
and I'm pleased that I know now at the French it can work out.
"So I don't think I need to change anything right now for the
next couple of years — then maybe one time I can say, 'OK, I
can play a little more on clay, a few tournaments and so on', but
thank God the French is before Wimbledon, so I wouldn't have to
skip a grand slam to try to win it."
He may, indeed, miss the first-round Davis Cup tie against
Australia in Geneva from February 10, having announced he will
defer his decision until after his Melbourne Park campaign ends
less than a fortnight earlier. A faithful cup servant and two-time
Olympian, Federer missed last year's opening round because of
differences with then-captain Marc Rosset.
A commitment under new skipper Severin Luthi would mean a return
bout with Hewitt, to whom Federer lost seven of the pair's first
nine matches, including the one widely credited as the most painful
of his career: when the Swiss served for a straight-sets victory in
the 2003 Davis Cup semi-final at Melbourne Park, only to crumble in
five sets.
Painful? Yes. A career low? That, he insists, is a myth (along
with the one, incidentally, that a deal already has been done for
Hewitt's former coach, Darren Cahill, to take over from Roche as
soon as the ageing Agassi retires. "It's not true at all," Federer
protested. "I've never, ever heard of it before.")
But back to Hewitt, who has lost his past nine matches to his
great rival, several in quite humiliating fashion. "He was very
dominant over me in the beginning. He beat me many times badly,
too, tough matches which hurt me a lot," Federer said.
"Then, all of a sudden, I turned it around when he beat me in
Davis Cup. I've never lost to him since, but I think I've started
to maybe become more strong mentally, physically, and I'm ready to
handle his tough game because you've got to be fit to play him, and
I think before that I was just not fit enough.
"(The Davis Cup match) was tough because I was up two sets to
love and a break and serving for the match and in the end, I lost
the way I did — him going crazy, the fans against me, and so
on, and it was hard at the moment itself. But I thought I played
great tennis and I lost in the end to a better player. But I've had
tough losses where I cried much more and I was much more sad than
that day, so I got over it fairly quickly."
If Federer is the emotional type — remember his blubbering
acceptance speech after his first Wimbledon title? — he is
also developing with age and years on the tour. He is becoming more
interested in shopping, fashion, immersing himself in the culture
of the many places he visits.
He is more open to learning what he can from the people he
meets, and more determined to break out of the narrow
hotel-courts-hotel cycle.
ATP insiders speak of his changing focus, his appreciation of
the value of the entertainment dollar, and the fact that, for
example, Federer already is discussing marketing ideas for this
year's Masters Cup in Shanghai, one of the developing tennis
regions, despite the event still being 10 months away.
The game's best player is becoming increasingly interested in
its direction and welfare, and involved in shaping the big
picture.
And yet he remains accessible, accommodating and reasonable.
"You're always waiting for when he's going to crack or snap, but he
just doesn't," says ATP board member Iggy Jovanovic. "He's always
thinking, that kid, and he just keeps surprising us."
On the court, Federer has become used to people thinking it all
comes easily, and yet the immaculate footwork that permits the
genius of his shot-making to flow is one of many aspects that
requires hard, constant work.
He plans his fitness peaks with typical precision and plots his
year to best avoid injuries, and so it was that last year's ankle
problem was a rare setback.
If he has surprised himself, it has been by playing better
tennis than he ever imagined, with a superior backhand than he
thought possible, and greater mental consistency.
Even when Federer admits to times of struggle just to keep the
ball in play, he can count on almost always feeling better when the
big matches and the important moments come.
"This is a very strange thing," he said, smiling, "and I hope
it's going to last."
But, given his current place in the game, would Federer be
disappointed if he does not win all that is expected of him from
here? Break Sampras' grand slam record? Surpass the great American
in consecutive years (six) and total weeks (286) at No. 1, for
instance?
"Oh, no. I'm not playing to break the records, I'm playing to
enjoy myself, have no regrets once I look back, and if on the way I
break records, then that's fantastic.
"But I'm already going through such an interesting and great
time at the moment that if it will be 15 (majors), great, if it
will be 300 weeks at No. 1, great, if I finish the year at No. 1
eight times in a row, great.
"But I don't think it's going to change how I look at the game.
I love the game no matter how it's going to turn out to be. If I'm
never going to win a match again, I'll walk away and love the
sport, and I think that's what matters most in the end."
Federer loves it, just as — a few jealous rivals aside
— tennis adores him right back. Consider this: the day after
last year's epic Marat Safin-Federer semi-final at Melbourne Park,
a match the Russian won 9-7 in the fifth set after saving a match
point, long-time ATP employee Jovanovic received a text
message.
It was from Federer, and the departing top seed was just
checking if there was anything more he needed to do before he left
town, or whether he was OK to leave. The anecdote is revealing, but
not wholly surprising. What, unusually, had not been a flawless
Federer day was still handled, well, perfectly.
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