His Italian job proves Roger’s still the daddy

LORENZI FEDERER JONATHAN McEVOY

ThiS was such a sublime obliteration that towards the end of it, roger Federer’s many worshippers were cheering on Paolo lorenzi — a little-known italian without a prayer — in the hope that he could prolong their entertainment.

When lorenzi won a game he smiled and saluted the crowd. When he won a point it was met by loud applause. he even saved f i ve match points. The only problem was that he won too few points and too few games and Federer was predictably victorious.

There was to be no repeat of last year’s humbling of a great champion; Federer’s watch-throughyour-fingers second-round defeat by Sergiy Stakhovsky, a ukrainian who was 116 in the world.

no, the great Federer won with a big ace down the middle and duly put Wimbledon back on its axis here yesterday. it took him 24 minutes to win the first set and 1hr 33min to complete the job. but for lorenzi’s fleeting, late obduracy, Federer could have been back home to share a late lunch with his newly- expanded family.

his wife Mirka was in Court one, clapping her man. The two sets of twins, Myla and Charlene, aged four, and leo and lenny, aged seven weeks, were waiting for Super Dad back at their base down the road.

‘ it’s nice having the family with you as much as possible,’ he said. ‘They know i play a lot of tennis. i don’t know if they understand it is a job. They know i play for a trophy and all that stuff.’ The chances of siring two sets of identical twins have been estimated at one in 700,000 but what of Federer, 32, winning an eighth Wimbledon title? in doing that he would become the oldest champion here in the modern era, beating 31-year-old arthur ashe in 1975.

There were no more than clues in what we saw in this first-round match but we can say that the Swiss’s recent upturn in form continues. The back problems and his patchy form of a year ago were nowhere to be seen.

if he has lost a little speed with age, the delicacy of his shotmaking endures. he said his larger racket head has given him more power on his serve.

he volleyed more than in recent years, moving to the net regularly and confidently, and declaring that ‘it could be that little extra piece to the puzzle’.

‘i didn’t serve and volley all the time,’ said Federer, who has worked on the tactic with his coach Stefan edberg. ‘That’s not how i intend to play. but mixing it up a little bit could be the way to go.’

Something of the ego still sparkles, even if last year’s defeat and the rise of rafa nadal, novak Djokovic and andy Murray have stripped away part of his numinous aura. The white and gold blazer was nowhere to be seen; he was merely in immaculate white.

immaculate is a good word for Federer (below), unlike the official notes issued to us hacks, which described him as ‘ the defending champion’. oh dear.

Tougher challenges await, starting with the big- serving Gilles Muller tomorrow. but for now the great rodge is content.

‘i s erved well, returned well and came forward a bit,’ he said. ‘ i could really do everything out

there.’