Freakish Federer master of the great comeback
Simon Briggs predicts tennis legend will still prove a cut above his rivals – even after taking time out of the game
With his body and mind refreshed, we should expect him to make it look easy once more
As Roger Federer obsessives tick off the days until his return to tennis, one can half imagine the great man looking down from his mountainside perch with a glass of Dom Perignon in his hand and a quizzical look in his eye.
Once again, his example is proving too freakish for the rest of the game to follow.
It is not Federer’s phenomenal forehand we are talking about on this occasion, nor his vast fortune, but his ability to bend time and space by returning from a six-month lay-off to win last year’s Australian Open, right off the bat.
The old rule of thumb on tennis downtime can be summed up in the phrase “double trouble”. For each month they spend off the tour, players would expect to go through another month of early exits and sub-par performances before the old magic returned.
But when Federer lifted the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup in January 2017, you could almost see the brainwaves spreading around the locker room. What if I took a rest, too? Or had an operation to sort out that dodgy elbow/knee/hip?
So it was that, six months after Federer’s Melbourne showpiece, we witnessed the biggest exodus from the ATP player lounge since the Wimbledon boycott of 1973. By the end of the season, seven of the world’s top 10 (as it stood in midsummer) had waved the white flag.
But walking away turned out to be the easy bit. Whereas returning to the game, for those in the final act of their careers, has felt like that Japanese game show where you keep climbing up – and then sliding down – a giant slippery staircase.
Stan Wawrinka and Novak Djokovic put their hands up in Australia, played a smattering of matches, and then disappeared again. Andy Murray never managed more than one half-paced exhibition in Abu Dhabi and a hopeful flight to Brisbane. Even Rafael Nadal, who has more experience in this area than anyone, turned in a series of withdrawals and retirements. It was only four weeks ago that he settled down with his traditional comfort blanket of red clay.
The sense of urgency is only increasing as we move towards the manic heart of the tennis season: two grand-slams in the space of four weeks.
Who will make it onto court? Who will hit form in the nick of time? Who will be left stewing on the sidelines?
Judy Murray informed the BBC this week that she had her “fingers crossed” that her son would be ready for the grass. Wawrinka told an interviewer, “I can see the end of the tunnel” – yet omitted to add where it might actually be. Meanwhile, Serena Williams – whose 13-month absence comes under the very different category of maternity leave – has scratched from event after event while promoting her HBO documentary series.
With only a fortnight left before the start of the French Open, many of the big names are stuck in what Hollywood might call “development hell”. And above it all looms the shadow of Federer himself.
By shrugging off the after-effects of his own knee surgery, Federer seemed to have rewritten the rules of engagement for everyone. Now it turns out that – in mastering the art of the comeback – he is still playing a different game to the rest.
In a month’s time, he will descend from his glass-and-steel mansion above Lake Geneva and begin his tilt at a ninth Wimbledon title. With his body and mind refreshed by 11 weeks of downtime, expect this serial mould-breaker to make it look easy, all over again.