Our love affair with Roger Federer is stronger than ever, but will this year be the last he serves up his 'magic' at the Australian Open?
There's something about Roger. Something about the way he moves. Some say he floats, which was also said about Muhammad Ali. This is appropriate, because tennis at the highest level, which Roger Federer has been playing over three decades, is boxing with balls: two competitors going at it head to head. Boxing, however, is brutal. Roger adds some ballet.
Federer will turn 39 in August. Since his 2018 Open triumph he has only reached one major tournament final, at Wimbledon last year. Three Opens ago, he was the 17th seed after taking the second half of 2016 off to fix a bung knee. He hadn’t been ranked so low in Melbourne since 2001; hadn’t won a major title since 2012. Then he rolled Rafa in a five-set final. Six months later he won Wimbledon for the eighth time.In Melbourne in January 2018 he celebrated back-to-back Opens. By the middle of that year he was No. 1 again, an unprecedented 14 years after first getting there.
“It was the first really big moment for Roger – dispatching Pete, the greatest champion of the world at that time.”Both of these Americans have pivotal roles in the Federer story. In July 2001, the 19-year-old Swiss managed something no other player had achieved in five years: he defeated Sampras on centre court at Wimbledon. Federer later confessed he had found it almost unbelievable to see one of his former idols across the net.
Comparisons were already being made with Lleyton Hewitt, six months older. Carter believed his kid would end up doing better. He was right. Later, asked about his problem, he replied, “Roger”. But when someone suggested he might need to step up against Agassi, Federer responded, “He’s not as good as he was … I think he has to raise his game, not me.” I was present for that, just as I’d been courtside to watch both men win Australian titles . I wondered what was Swiss-German for “hubris”.
Agassi was now a believer: “He’s the best I’ve ever played against. He plays this game in a special way. I haven’t seen it before.” Federer’s winning ways at Wimbledon. From top left in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012 and 2017.“Times … when the jaw drops and eyes protrude.” I know what he meant. It was in 2005, witnessing Federer crush Agassi on an olive-green court, that I realised I was gasping at the improbability of some shots.
There’s another word often used about him: “genius”. After the 2012 Wimbledon final, former pro player Sue Barker began her on-court interview by suggesting he’d played “genius tennis”. He didn’t disagree. But the flip side of this is that he has raised the bar almost impossibly high. Anything less than success represents failure.
That’s something about Roger that underscores his appeal: fragility. Things can go wrong. Mozart hits a bung note on the piano. He is a man, not Superman. Asked if, when growing up, he’d been a Federer or Nadal guy , Alex de Minaur replies, “They’re very, very different players. You’ve just got to admire their qualities: Roger’s elegance and style, Rafa’s fighting spirit.”
Ah yes, the losses. There’s something about Roger that means his losses can increasingly seem more memorable. Also more painful. Not just for him. The woman born Miroslava Vavrinec in what was then Czechoslovakia first took notice of him when they were both members of the Swiss tennis team at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. He was funny, she thought. Also three years younger. Injuries ended her own playing career in 2002. After that, she has said, “Roger gave my tennis life back to me. When he wins, it’s as if I win as well.” But when he’s close to winning, as he was at Wimbledon last July, it is excruciating.
“I hadn’t expected him to win, so had a range of responses,” Lane says. “I was delighted he played so well. I was in awe of Djokovic’s remarkable capacity to play so unerringly when looking down the barrel. And absolutely gutted. Also left wondering whether the chance might ever come again.” Late in November, Federer played Zverev again in a string of meaningless but lucrative exhibition matches in Mexico and South America, presumably raising money for his philanthropic foundation. This diversion raised eyebrows, as it coincided with the rejigged Davis Cup being contested in Spain. There’s something about Roger that can piss people off – not least a feeling that he is bigger than the game.
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