|
July 12, 2007
Federer's artistry is enough to make you sing
By Michael Henderson, Telegraph
When
Sir VS Naipaul was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature six years
ago, Philip Hensher, the novelist and critic, paid a singular tribute.
"He was so great a writer," said Hensher, "that his nomination
conferred honour on the prize."
That judgment came to mind last Sunday when Roger Federer retained his Wimbledon title after that wonderful final against Rafael Nadal, who would also have
proved a most worthy winner. The Swiss is a champion among champions,
who confers distinction even on Wimbledon's Centre Court, the most
famous stage in tennis and one of the most illustrious arenas in all
sport. Much has been said of Federer's achievement.
This column composed a rhapsody to him last week, with a thousand
violins, but one should never tire of the greats, and it is safe to
count the five-times Wimbledon winner among that number. His latest
triumph gave us a glorious song of summer, and left everybody who
witnessed it with an imperishable memory. Nor is he through. By the
time he has hung up his racket there will be a few more bears' heads on
his wall. I happened to watch the final with, among
others, the dance critic of The New York Times, who confessed that
Federer is the only sportsman he has ever wanted to write about. Now
that is something worth noting, and who can say the reviewer is wrong
in his estimation that Federer is "an artist"? Artistry
is not a word that lends itself easily to sport, which doesn't stop
people using it. They would do well to learn by heart something that
Laurence Olivier once said: "Talent is very plentiful but skill is
rather rare." And, as the lord might have added, the artist - as
opposed to artiste - is rarer still; a performer apart. Nobody
could possibly have been a greater artist than Olivier, whose mastery
of all aspects of acting, on stage, television and big screen, will
never be matched. Apparently, there are young actors today, barely out
of short pants, dramatically speaking, who ask their elders: "Was he
really that good?" To which the old-timers reply, after rolling their
eyes: "Greater than you can possibly imagine." Another
member of Sunday's gathering compared Federer with Sugar Ray Robinson
in his pomp, which one is prepared to take on trust, knowing something
of Robinson's reputation. Others would supply the name of Cassius Clay,
although in his case there was all that boasting and play-acting, which
seems less amusing now than it once did, and some of it didn't seem
terribly funny back then. Sir Garfield Sobers was
an artist on the cricket field, and Shane Warne still is. George Best,
with supreme balance and two feet, was one, and so was Jimmy Greaves,
who used to pass the ball into the goal. All Black Dan Carter is an
artist. Thierry Henry is another, even if he is occasionally inclined
to adorn the frame, not the picture. Seve Ballesteros was an artist,
who worked in dark oils, thickly and swiftly applied. Others
will have short lists of their own, but Federer, I warrant, will appear
on every one. To have that compound of grace and power, felicity and
grapeshot, athleticism allied to the featherest of feather touches, and
an unrivalled court sense, based on geometry and apprehension, all
intensified by the willpower that sustains the true champion, makes him
unique. More than Bjorn Borg, whose record he
equalled, more even than John McEnroe, who also had an artist's eye,
Federer is beautiful to watch. Again, beautiful is not a word that
should be used too often. Yet, watching Federer, one is drawn to that
famous line of William B Yeats: "How can we know the dancer from the
dance?" You could live to be 100 and never again
see the wounding quality of strokes that Federer sprayed across the
court in that fifth set, when he rose so mightily to Nadal's spirited
challenge. This was when the champion in Federer reasserted himself,
and it made the heart sing. There are lessons here for Andy Murray,
whose wrist injury kept him out of Wimbledon. Even when he is declared
fit the Scot finds it hard work to raise a gallop throughout five sets.
If Murray really wants to be a Wimbledon champion - and he appears to
have some talent - he would be better off concentrating on his tennis,
and not putting his name to an 'autobiography' which cannot tell very
much because he hasn't lived long enough. Here is a young man who has
not always received the wisest advice, but there is still time to mend
his ways. 'McBrat' could also learn from Federer's
example that people warm more readily to a sportsman who smiles and
charms as he goes about his business. There are a few examples to the
contrary, the young McEnroe being one, but in his case there was an
element of the panto about it. Murray's view, that
he prefers the US Open at Flushing Meadow because the atmosphere in New
York is "rock'n'roll", invites the kind of scorn that a young sportsman
could easily live without. Anybody who stitches "rock'n'roll" into the
fabric of conversation, particularly with regard to tennis, is on the
rocky road to ruin. Get a blazer, Andy, and a pair of fetching white
strides. Better still, put on a cravat. Fred Astaire beats rock'n'roll
any day. It is impossible to overstate Federer's
importance as a champion. He is the greatest tennis player of his
generation, and well on the way to being acknowledged as the greatest
of all time. He conducts himself with dignity, and has a sense of the
game's traditions, and of the achievements of those who came before. To hear him talk of Borg and Rod Laver was to hear the voice of a man who values the past, which not all modern sportsmen do. An
England cricketer of the recent past once struggled to identify the
far-from-invisible frame of Colin Cowdrey, later Lord Cowdrey, in a
group of Test players from the Sixties. He should have been sent to bed
without any supper. Instead his captain defended him. The past, he
believed, was simply something that happened years ago. It didn't
impinge upon the present. To his credit, that man, Nasser Hussain,
knows better now. Of course the past matters. It
enables us to place achievements into an appropriate context, which is
not the same as making lists, fun though that can be. It is of little
consequence to wonder whether Laver, for instance, would be able to
hack it in modern tennis, just as it is mere fancy to wonder whether
Sir Tom Finney would be able to dance past full-backs, as he did half a
century ago. They were great in their time, as Federer is in his. Let us all give thanks to the artist who has made the summer.
|
