A Federer grand slam? EYE CULTURE
Roger Federer’s Australian Open victory in January this year, followed up by the “Sunshine Slam,” (wins at Indian Wells and Miami), raises this salivating prospect for tennis fans: A Grand Slam for Federer at the geriatric (in tennis terms) age of 36. What lends plausibility is that this season Federer has worsted his nemesis – Rafael Nadal – three times already this season, including in two finals, the epic one, and the trigger for the Roger revival, being the Australian Open itself.
There was something very special about that victory not least because there was a lot at stake in the match, indeed Federer’s very claim to being the Greatest Ever. Losing to Nadal yet again, Federer fans would have had difficulty countering the assertion (first made by Mats Wilander) that no one can be considered the greatest of all times if he wasn’t even the greatest of his own time. And the Rafa-Roger head-tohead statistics would have been devastating: 7-2 in Rafa’s favour in Grand Slam finals, and 10-2 in Grand Slam finals and semi-finals. Roger-Rafa, in other words, was never a contest, making a mockery of the claim that Roger is the greatest ever.
But with that victory and especially the manner of that victory, history’s verdict, might start – just about – looking a little different. Federer did in the Aussie Open, and in the twilight of his career, what he had never done in his prime: Beat Rafael Nadal on a surface other than grass in Grand Slam matches; beat Rafael Nadal converting his weakness – the backhand (which was really only a weakness when playing Nadal) – into his greatest strength; and beat Rafael Nadal in a five setter, displaying mental toughness in coming from behind to win the deciding fifth set. In short, Roger managed to vanquish all the demons of the past in this match.
Why the new Federer emerged from the ghost of the old one will probably never be satisfactorily answered. Perhaps it was because Roger felt he had little to lose having just come back from a major injury so that even reaching the final was a bonus as his post-victory remarks (unconvincingly) suggested; perhaps because Roger and Rafa had not played for a long time so that the demons of defeat were not on the surface of his psyche, playing tricks on his mind and hence muscle memory; or perhaps because Roger had genuinely achieved a mental equipoise about his place in history and about his long post-peak tennis career.
Whatever the cause, the effect was unmistakable, manifested particularly in the new Roger backhand: Less slices and more drives, and drives hit with power, fluency, and uninhibited flourish. If there is one moment encapsulating Federer-asNureyev, it is when Federer has just struck his backhand: His legs are off the ground and both arms are fully extended in opposite directions, the metrosexual tennis ballerino poised in mid-air, the long fingers splayed, sensitive, and sensuous.
Edward Said, amongst others, have written about the Late Style of artists and writers, and Beethoven in particular. In a great piece, Brian Phillips of Grantland has similarly written about the distinctive Late Style of Roger. Roger, in his view, has managed athletic decline in surprisingly effective ways in sharp contrast to others such as Michael Jordan or even Bjorn Borg. Despite no longer being a serious contender, Roger continues to play without evoking commiseration or condescension in his fans, the normal reaction to a has-been athlete. By showing that there can be a post-tennis life in and outside tennis and doing so on his terms, Federer had achieved a freedom and grace rare among athletes. (Of course, there is also a real Late Style story waiting to be written on Nadal, bringing a battered body back to life for Grand Slam-level tennis, through sheer mental fortitude).
With the Aussie Open final result, and the subsequent “Sunshine Slam,” the Brian Phillips view must be updated or even revised. Roger has once again scaled the summit, is today the best player in the world, and is arguably playing the best tennis of his career. The saga of rise and gentle, genteel decline needs to be rewritten because… Roger is Baaaack.
So, Federer Grand Slam? On current form and recent performance, Wimbledon and the US Open, his two favorite surfaces, are probably his to lose. Can Roger beat the greatest clay court player of all time, Nadal at Roland Garros though? It will be difficult but Roger is peaking and Rafa’s muscularly physical style of play has taken its toll, so a more equal combat than in the past cannot be ruled out. It is also possible that Rafa will be eliminated in the early rounds so that Roger will have to overcome mere clay mortals such as Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic.
Of Roger’s ascendant phase, David Foster Wallace wrote memorably that to see “power and aggression made vulnerable to beauty is to feel inspired and (in a fleeting, mortal way) reconciled.” (Although to be honest, that description seems exactly wrong when thinking of who succumbed to whom in the RogerRafa duels). Of his decline, Brian Phillips wrote that seeing Roger miss was like watching “beauty succumb to death.”
An exegesis of Roger’s third, resurgent phase awaits a David Foster Wallace or Brian Phillips. But its title, evoking Frank Kermode and Julian Barnes, readily suggests itself: “Sense of An Ending, Indefinitely Postponed.”