A KING WITH ALL THE ACES
Roger Federer has a claim to be tennis’s Goat — an effort of sheer willpower
It’s the source of endless debate in pubs: who sits in the pantheon of the greatest-of-alltime sportspeople, or the Goats?
The answers hinge on code preference and the evaluator’s age: older sports lovers punt Ali, Pelé, Blankers-Koen and Bradman; younger fans insist upon Maradona or Messi, Michael Jordan and Kipchoge.
Yet in any such discussion, it’s impossible to ignore the credentials of Roger Federer. In an elite 20year tennis career spanning nearly 1,600 professional matches, he’s held the world’s No 1 ranking for 310 weeks — 4½ years consecutively, between February 2004 and August 2008. He has triumphed in 20 Grand Slam tournaments — three of them after he turned 35.
As a marketing drawcard, he is unsurpassed in the game, having racked up career earnings in excess of $1bn, 90% of the money derived from sponsorships and exhibition play.
Federer’s pull is illustrated by the 52,000 people who packed into the Cape Town Stadium in 2020, before Covid broke. Why would so many pay good money to watch a meaningless exhibition match, capped at two sets — admittedly against Rafa Nadal — and a nonsense doubles mix-up including Bill Gates and Trevor Noah?
It shows the value of being able to glimpse, in person, Federer’s trademark whip forehand, the graceful movement across the court and his textbook one-handed backhands — rare in the modern game. As New York Times tennis correspondent Christopher Clarey details in the biography The Master, it’s this, and more.
Federer has a magnetism despite a lack of oncourt charisma, and a brand that transcends the niche, elitist atmosphere of Wimbledon as his prime territory of triumph. He is, as Clarey writes, “the most famous living Swiss”.
More pertinently, his languid, liquid athleticism blended with elegant power make him what Billie Jean King calls “the most beautiful and balletic player I’ve ever seen”.
Strangely, given the modern-day emphasis on data for training, improvement and punditry, The Master doesn’t list Federer’s career statistics. Clarey may be revealing his own bias here: Federer’s numbers are incredible — but he is shaded by Novak Djokovic. Over their 50 meetings, Djokovic has tamed Federer’s strengths and exerted his own form of powerplay to win the majority of their matches.
The book excels in reliving the drama of landmark matches in recent tennis history, such as the
2008 Wimbledon final, when Federer eventually lost to Nadal 6-4 6-4 6-7 (5) 6-7 (8) 9-7. Some critics consider it the greatest tennis match ever played, and Clarey’s adept descriptions recreate the thrills of the enthralling five-hour battle. Ultimately, despite saving three match points, Federer was denied his sixth consecutive Wimbledon title.
Remarkably, some consider Federer an underachiever because he’s blown so many championship points in majors — at least 20, according to Clarey — more than double similar opportunities for
Nadal and Djokovic. “The guy should be at 30 Grand Slam tournaments if you’re talking about all these matches he lost where he was clearly ahead,” believes veteran coach Günter Bresnik.
Clarey attributes this to Federer’s naturally attacking game, and a high margin for error in shot selection. Maybe, too, he hasn’t entirely overcome the acute sensitivity of Federer the child and young teen, who cried inconsolably at the slightest imperfection. He can’t be labelled a choker, but on-court ruthlessness is the only attribute that occasionally seems lacking.
A steel will
Beyond the baseline, The Master isn’t revelatory regarding the real-life, off-court Federer. As such it isn’t a riveting, emotive biography. Rather, it’s a comprehensive exploration of what goes into the making of elite modern-day sports stars.
What is striking is how many coaches and specialist consultants Federer has employed. Even when just a promising youngster, he had two main coaches and a sports psychologist, Christian Marcolli, specifically hired to calm his on-court temper. Clarey makes Federer sound bland compared with John McEnroe, but the Swiss environment wouldn’t tolerate dramatic behaviour. His punishment at one teenage tennis camp was to clean the toilets for a week.
Mastery also requires obsessive commitment. As a 16-year-old, Federer changed dentists because he felt his dream was undermined when the appointment turned into an interrogation about why he was pursuing a career in tennis. “I’m trying to aim for the stars, and he’s trying to pull me back … I don’t want to be surrounded by people like this.”
But perhaps it underscores that this single-mindedness, the fusion of an athlete’s identity with their pursuit, is what sets supreme performers apart.
Here, Clarey underestimates the inspiration of another 16-year-old Swiss who was blowing away the tennis scene. Martina Hingis’s flame burned seriously hot for just a short period; she won the Australian Open, Wimbledon and US Open in 1997 and became the youngest No 1 ranked female player. Her success must have been a vicarious thrill for Federer, and she was, in many respects, his pathfinder.
Fascinatingly, too, Federer has been unafraid to change coaches routinely — even immediately after championship triumphs. This restlessness and constant quest for perfection may be attributable to his wife and de facto manager, Mirka. A former professional whose career was cut short by injury, Mirka has kept him professionally driven and emotionally stable.
It’s clear that talent alone is inadequate. Two of Federer’s early contemporaries, the Australian Lleyton Hewitt and the Russian Marat Safin, had raw skill advantages and regularly beat him. Both won their first Grand Slam at a younger age than Federer. But the pressures of stardom told on both, and their initial superiority spurred Federer.
Unprecedented rivalry
Incredibly, the modern era has three players — Federer, Nadal and Djokovic — who are all level on 20 Grand Slam titles.
But, according to the authoritative website Ultimate Tennis Statistics, Djokovic has more Goat points than Federer, and leads their head-tohead record — markedly so in Grand Slam matches. Djokovic is also six years younger and so, despite blowing his opportunity in the final of last year’s US Open, seems destined to win a few more majors.
Clarey calls Federer’s longevity “a long-running act of will”, but the phrase underplays the role of professional pride during the periods over the past decade when Nadal and Djokovic inched ahead. He had to dig deep to re-emerge, as he did during the rivalry with Hewitt and Safin in the earlier part of his career.
This month’s Australian Open could be where one of Federer’s rivals finally eclipses him to the
Grand Slam lead. Nadal is competing, upbeat despite having just returned from a four-month injury layoff and testing positive for Covid in late December. And Djokovic, widely derided for his antivaxxer stance, has now been given permission by the Australian courts to compete, despite not having been vaccinated. (At the time of writing Australia’s immigration minister was still deciding whether to rescind his visa.)
Federer — recovering from multiple knee surgeries and scheduled to be back in full training only in April — must be a frustrated bystander. It will be a close call whether he is ready for Wimbledon in June, by which time he will be nearly 41. This suggests his phenomenal career is drawing to a close.
“But,” he says, “it would be the ultimate dream to go back. And I still believe in it. I believe in these kinds of miracles.” And that’s Federer, driven by the impossible, more than anything else.