by Bill Simons
Was it the worst quip in tennis history?
Who knows?
But clearly Novak Djokovic‘s zealous mother was just a tad off-base in 2008 when—after her son beat Roger Federer—she proclaimed, “The king is dead.”
Wrong! Emphatically wrong!
Since then, mountains have collapsed, seas have risen, but Old Man River—i.e. The Mighty Federer—has rolled on and on.
Following Mme. Djokovic’s wishful commentary, Roger has won 29 tournaments, including two Wimbledons and each of the other Slams once. In the meantime, his key contemporaries have all but vanished. Marat Safin is now a Russian politician voting the party line. Andy Roddick is an American broadcaster mixing it up on Fox. And Lleyton Hewitt is scrambling big-time to stay in the top 50 and remain relevant.
Not Roger.
Amazingly, the not exactly creaky 33-year-old was again the story of tennis in 2014. Sure, he wasn’t No. 1, and over the last two and a half years, he’s reached just one Slam final (last year’s Wimbledon). True, he didn’t score a single huge singles win—say, like his long-ago 2001 Wimbledon victory over Pete Sampras; or when in 2009, after 10 tries, he finally won the French Open.
Still, at virtually every turn last year, Roger was front and center in the tennis conversation. This came on the heels of a forgettable 2013 campaign in which he had a gimpy back and repeatedly got thumped by wannabes. He seemed slower, less explosive. His backhand was vulnerable, and at times he lacked confidence and couldn’t close. His ranking dropped an to an un-Federer-like No. 7. Behind his back, whispers stung: “He’ll never win another Slam.” Roger himself admitted that he had “a really tough time in slower conditions,” and he “just couldn’t get my racket on [the ball].” He even confided, “I played scared.”
2014 was different.
Yes, as Jim Courier said, Roger was “trying to defeat Father Time, which is undefeated, as far as I can see.” Yet, with a new Wilson racket in hand, a new Swedish coach by his side, and a back that at last was no longer cranky, Federer crafted an inspired year of renewal: joyous, triumphant, relaxed.
He charged out of the gate with a fresh ‘tude and high expectations for good results from his play, and for his wife, who was expecting. His rebirth drew attention. As he reached a showdown with Rafa Nadal in the Aussie Open semis, one fan said, “History will be watching.” After he helped open tennis’ best new court, Indian Wells’ snazzy Stadium 2, tournament CEO Raymond Moore gushed, “It’s been phenomenal, and beyond our wildest dreams.”
IT’s Josh Gajewski wrote of Roger’s early season play: “He just seems so much sharper, crisper. He looks like he has real confidence in his new frame, whereas last year he was always thinking/pressing with it … and now he’s slinging both first and second serves with no thought or pressure again. He looks free.”
Then at Wimbledon Roger soared. Not with that swift dominance we once knew so well, but with the fierce yesteryear grit suggestive of another supposedly over-the-hill icon—Jimmy Connors.
Writer Simon Barnes reflected on 2014’s match of the year—Roger’s near-classic Wimbledon final against Djokovic, where he saved two match points and unleashed a breathless fourth-set comeback before falling in the fifth. “The match,” noted Barnes, “suddenly became a blast furnace, a heretic-consuming inferno that fizzed and crackled to the sound of demented prayerful cheering as the finest arena in sport … went into spontaneous combustion … And Federer, yesterday’s man … the champion of champions now reduced to playing his endgame, his life now an elegant, elegiac prolonged farewell tour, was suddenly back in full, rampaging force … This wasn’t Federer as the purring, effortless winner with that ever-so-slightly smug expression: this was Federer recast as street fightin’ man.”
Everyone seemed to adore the Federerian surge. A right-brained fan revealed, “You flood us with joy, Roger.” A left-brain type countered, “I love Roger Federer more than free Wi-Fi.”
The year of Roger playing marvelously was now in full flight. At the US Open, Jon Wertheim said, “Federer is the belt that is holding up this tournament,” while Mary Carillo suggested that “Roger has been approaching incandescence.”
You think? In New York, in a sizzling quarterfinal, before an adoring throng, he came back from two sets down and saved two match points against the French showman Gaël Monfils, prevailing in what proved to be both the best comeback and the most compelling American match of the year.
Still, the best of Roger’s saga was yet to come. After his run to the US Open semis, he helped Switzerland prevail in the Davis Cup semis, won in Basel and Shanghai, and reached the final of the ATP championships in London. There, “Roger Tennis” put in his bid for the Nobel Peace Prize when he brokered a détente between wife Mirka and pal Stan Wawrinka. He then promptly joined forces with Wawrinka to win the Davis Cup, filling one of the two notable gaps in his singular resume.
Lloyd Carroll once noted that “the aura of Federer hovers over the US Open.” This year his aura hovered over all of tennis. After all, Nadal was again hobbled, Murray went backwards, Serena blew hot and cold, a few new faces made some modest waves, and the superb but artless craftsman Djokovic won Wimbledon and the ATP championships, but failed to capture hearts—despite being the player of the year.
For almost a dozen years, Roger has done what no other player—not Borg, McEnroe, Sampras, Agassi and certainly not Nadal—has done. He has, with virtually no gap, remained at the forefront of the tennis buzz.
Of course, Roger’s world is not only about bashing a yellow ball. This world citizen speaks six languages; helps victims of disasters from Haiti to Thailand and sponsors schools in Africa; has a South African mother and a Slovakian-born wife; has worked with coaches from Australia, Spain, the US and now Sweden; and has an American agent, a pad in Dubai, and plays with American gear made in Asia. Writer Eleanor Preston calls him “the most perfect tennis player—the most perfect man—in the history of everything, ever.” Now he’s also emerged as a snappy photographer, tweeting jaw-dropping shots of urban landscapes, sunsets from Indian Wells to Monte Carlo, and a slew of humanizing selfies.
All the while, this star who hangs with royals attracted the likes of Michael Jordan, Larry Ellison, Rod Laver and Sampras. Plus, he moved into a stunning three-story, 5,400-square-foot metro mansion overlooking Lake Zurich, and, lest we forget, he and Mirka defied 90-to-1 odds and had their second set of twins. An exasperated Brian Phillips seemed to speak for guys around the globe when he noted, “Man, Federer even reproduces better than everyone else.” The WTA’s Bethanie Mattek-Sands simply pleaded, “This guy has gotta leave some records for the rest of us. #OverAchiever.”
It’s said that Nadal’s muscles have muscles. Similarly, it seems as if Federer’s records have records. Never mind that he’s won 17 Slams, reached 23 straight semis, has prevailed at 82 tournaments and has been No. 1 for a record 302 weeks. This year the 33-year-old won the ATP’s Fan Favorite Award for the 12th straight year and became the oldest No. 2 ever. Yes, we get it—as Sports Illustrated informed us, “Roger really has the hang of tennis.”
But just how has he shaped the greatest career in tennis history? A lot of it has to do with his unwavering joy, his grasp of every nuance of tennis, his pitch-perfect technique, and the no-detail-is-too-small MBA-like management of his career. The man who relentlessly trains in the Middle Eastern sun still hits with such energy-saving efficiency. He rarely over-schedules, rarely is sick (except for one random bout with mono and those recent back twitches), rarely loses to lower ranked players, and rarely frets. His religion is ease; his ethos is, “Don’t worry, be Roger.”
All this is rooted in his sublime arsenal of shots: that wicked “wham and win” forehand; his varied and wondrous backhands; an underrated, almost Samprasian serve; his liquid movement; well-tested mental toughness; savvy game management; that dazzling imagination (deft lob here, subtle drop shot there); and those other delightful tennis twins—variety and disguise. Andre Agassi once noted that with Pete Sampras, “there was a place to get to. There’s no such place with Roger … His foes have to play their best just to stay in the rearview mirror.”
Plus, Roger has been able to evolve seamlessly over the years. Once an explosive teen, he long ago put aside his racket-tossing ways, and over the years he’s worked with a range of carefully selected coaches and rackets. Early on, serve and volleying was key. But he became a power baseliner, and figured out how to prevail on clay at the French Open. Now that he can’t easily dominate foes from the baseline, he comes to the net more often, and surprises foes with surgical drop shots. He’s also become tougher mentally: incredibly, he saved 11 match points en route to wins last year. His decision-making is sharper than ever. Could it be that for Roger both his deep calm and just having fun are weapons? Is time his only foe?Ultimately, we are drawn to Roger not only because of his records, his Old Man River longevity, and his endearing love of the game, but because of his sublime grace and the sheer beauty of his play.
After all, if you want to argue the case of sports historian Elizabeth Wilson that tennis shares more DNA with dance than any other major sport, and that “it is the tension between art and sport that makes it so special”; or if you want to back David Foster Wallace‘s cosmic claim that great sportsmen “catalyze our awareness of how glorious it is to touch and perceive, move through space, [and] interact with matter,” your first witness would have to be Federer. At his core, he seems closer to Baryshnikov or Astaire than to your favorite linebacker or designated hitter.
What amazes us is his dreamy fluidity and elastic tai chi-like grace, the elegant flow of his ethereal backhand, his easy inventive flicks, his creative dinks, his rhythmic serve, and those astounding “wow” shots: “How’d he do that?” ‘tweeners, or running overheads off of foe’s overheads. “Roger drifts into an almost dreamlike state,” notes Bruce Jenkins, “his every move a beacon of anticipation.” Similarly, the London Times claimed that for Roger, playing tennis “in a way that avoids beauty is beyond him.”
Of course, the preferred heartthrob of so many is not for everyone. Some bristle that the perspiration-free idol is a bit too squeaky-clean. But the man is not perfect; his life is not frictionless. He is only the second-best clay court player of our era. He hasn’t won an Olympic gold in singles. Incredibly, he has losing records against almost 25 players, including Nadal, who has won 23 of their 33 matches (this is not a typo). However wondrous, his backhand at times can be attacked. He completely lost track of the score of a key match this year and didn’t even realize that he had just beaten Kei Nishikori. Five years ago, he had a deliciously out of character snit fit and pulverized his racket. And—how dare he?—he lacks a made-for-Hollywood, hardscrabble backstory. He didn’t emerge from a cold water flat in Moscow. He didn’t survive a war, or practice in a pool, or groom his forehand as inner-city bullets whizzed by.
An international icon who is a brand unto himself, he adores control, doesn’t take fools lightly, and can be a tad imperious. The man is well aware of his achievements; he doesn’t have a low opinion of himself. He speaks of the joy of being the center of attention and delights in meeting A-list celebrities. Alas, has there been a more adept braggart in sports since Muhammad Ali? He boasts with a disarming candor and signature charming ease.
After a great match, he will inform you that what you saw out there was amazing. He once said “reaching the finals of Slams has become sort of routine.” While fans may view his long matches as minor wonders, he dismisses them as “stupid five-setters.” Remembering his dominant heyday, he’s said, “I had a beautiful backhand, a beautiful forehand, and I moved well—and all that.”
After a win over Djokovic, the triumphant Swiss was dismissive: “[Novak] had his chances today—many of them. You could sing a song about it.” Then there was the time he was asked whether Lleyton Hewitt (whom he’d beaten eight straight times) should change his approach. “He could,” replied Roger, “but then again, he could run into the knife more brutally.”
But for every self-congratulatory (“It ain’t braggin’ if it’s true”) quip, there are buckets of comments from an at times vulnerable soul who wept at his wedding, at the birth of his children, on court at the 2009 Aussie Open after a five-set loss to Nadal, and again this year during the Wimbledon awards ceremony. After winning the Davis Cup in December, Roger said, “In the end I wanted it more for the guys, for [coach] Severin [Luethi] and Stan [Wawrinka] … and everyone involved. I’ve won enough in my career. I didn’t need to tick any empty boxes. This is one for the boys.”About his life as a whole, he told Vogue, “As long as I wake up in the morning and Mirka is next to me, that’s all that matters.” Not surprisingly, when reflecting on his legacy, he admitted, “I just want to be remembered as one of the nice guys.”
No worries there, Roger.
Admired in the locker room, respected in the ATP board room, and adored on every continent, Roger is the most celebrated figure in tennis history, and one of the most revered international sportsmen since Ali. Former pro Nicolas Kiefer claimed, “We are on earth, he plays on another planet.”
So, throughout the world, fans bask in his genius. Before them is the Mozart of Center Court. This is Picasso, brush in hand, still painting masterpieces. Or the Stones’ Mick Jagger, in a summer stadium, belting out “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.”
Folks have even invented words inspired by him. “To Federer,” explained Sue Mott, is “to demolish with gasp-inducing fear.” To many, the man is our tennis god, the king of kings. No wonder when Jim Courier was asked whether he would ever consider re-enacting his famous victory dive into Melbourne’s Yarrow River, he cautioned, “[No], I’m concerned Federer might be walking on it.” Roger’s wife Mirka—and she should know—said, “I can’t imagine anyone waking up every morning being so content with everything.”
Yes, questions swirl. Can he win another Slam? Can he regain No. 1, or win gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics? During his prime, were his competitors sub-par? And, of course, is Roger the greatest of all time?
But almost religiously, Roger keeps it simple. “If my career ended today,” he confides, “I’d be happy.”
Millions of others might beg to differ. For when again will we see such a dominant athlete who so seamlessly combines such skill and luscious grace as Roger, the singular icon who has toyed with time, defied gravity, and “could not avoid beauty”?
