Balletic poise and freakish talent, he’d belt the ball but make it look like a sweet caress
Roger Federer was the man who always had a smile for fellow players but was never afraid to humiliate them on court if it had to be done. Feliciano Lopez, a close contemporary and veteran of 20 years on tour, once related that nobody could blow you away in quite the same manner. ‘You feel helpless against him. He does things that nobody is able to do,’ observed the Spaniard.
This has been at the heart of the Federer dichotomy. Supremely polished and easy-going in civilian life, all the while a ruthless competitor who hated losing as much as anyone. Lopez was one of many who found themselves on the wrong end of the freakish talent possessed by the Swiss. With a balletic poise, he could deliver winners from almost anywhere, and land his serve with laser-guided precision.
even when imparting great power to the ball, it looked almost like a sweet caress. That did not just intimidate opponents, but inspired some outstanding literature. It moved the late American author david Foster Wallace to write Roger Federer as Religious Experience.
Yet knee injuries ultimately reduced him to mortality. His announcement was not entirely
unexpected, and was met with a kind of resigned acceptance. Born within 49 days of Serena
Williams, the two of them have signalled their departures less than two weeks apart and tennis will never be quite the same again.
Federer’s last official appearance will be in next week’s Laver Cup team event at London’s o2 Arena, across the city from the suburb of SW19 where he first became a grand Slam champion, 19 years ago.
When he used to play in the ATP Finals at the o2 it became known as Zurich-on-Thames, such was the voluble support he drew there — and not just from hordes of travelling or expatriate Swiss fans.
ATP tournament officials would tell you that if ticket sales were ever sluggish for a session they would put Federer in that slot, and within half an hour it would sell out. His appeal stretched way beyond where he came from, Basle, and a global poll once found him to be the world’s second most respected person after Nelson Mandela.
Nobody took such care to cultivate their image to match their flawless physical gifts, or had such a good way of dealing with people, and it has been the most potent combination.
By the weekend after next he will be gone, at least at the highest official level of the game. He withdraws from the great grand Slam title race with Novak djokovic and rafael Nadal, trailing them just on
20. None of the three would have been as good without the other two, as they drove each other on through necessity.
Such is his massive drawing power that he will still command huge audiences when playing in exhibitions. It will help add to a fortune already bolstered by an estimated $1billion of endorsements earned over his career.
Federer arrived on the scene as a brattish teenager with a temper, the son of a Swiss father and South African mother who had met working for a pharmaceutical company. once an adult, they sensibly withdrew from his career for the most part. His quietly formidable wife Mirka became the key influence.
Having learned to control his temperament, an extravagant talent found full range. The peak of his career came some time ago, between 2004 and 2009, when he won 14 grand Slam titles, including five at Wimbledon.
The full flowering of djokovic and Nadal made them harder to come by thereafter, but there was a late career spurt in 2017-18.
Arguably the most spectacular major triumph of all was the 2017 Australian open, which he arrived at having missed the second half of the previous season.
In the final he came from a break down in the deciding set to defeat Nadal, whose rare slip at the 2009 French open had allowed Federer his one roland garros title.
As it turns out, his grand Slam career was to end at Wimbledon last year, and in the most inappropriate fashion. Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz knocked him out in the quarter-finals in straight sets, taking the last 6-0. Federer (left) was desperate to return to SW19 and make amends, but recovery from his latest knee surgery has proved beyond even him. All his achievements were carried off with a flourish and flair, and a further dimension has been his acute self- awareness — one which has protected his public standing. Federer is not perfect — nobody is — and sometimes this tendency would see him go missing when the political flak was flying in the sport’s internecine squabbles.
The mask could sometimes slip after defeats, because losing has never come naturally, and he could be ungracious after being beaten, failing to hide his ingrained competitive streak.
YeTthere is also a deeply humane aspect to him, and not just when the cameras are rolling. I recall once waiting to interview him in Miami while he went out of his way to privately meet a gravely ill young American boy and his parents. Within 20 seconds he had put them totally at ease and made them feel they were the only thing in his world. Having been given far more time than promised, the sight of them walking on air afterwards was extremely moving.
It is also telling that he is held in high esteem within the rarely seen backstage areas of tennis — the locker-room attendants handed souvenirs, the racket stringers asked if they wanted him to bring them a coffee.
Underneath it all, as one who has known him well since his teenage years puts it, he has just loved being a tennis player. He loves the travel, the locker-room banter, the
A global poll found him to be the world’s second-most respected person after Nelson Mandela
competition and even the unseen hard grind that has enabled it all.
As his close friend Tim Henman remarked: ‘He is unbelievably grounded and good with people. He embraced every aspect of tour life and is a very special person.
‘I played Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras at their best and Nadal and Djokovic before they reached their peak, and Roger was the best I faced. He could dominate you with every shot and do everything. He has been the complete player.’
Soon he will be lost to the professional game, and it feels that tennis’s great realignment is coming on quicker than ever.