FEDERER: DREAMING OF MASTERY

ED SMITH | THE GREAT SPORTSMEN | June 25th 2008

Roger Federer

Ed Smith, a leading cricketer in England and a former baseball player, has joined Intelligent Life as our sports analyst. In his first column, he looks for the key to Roger Federer's brilliance ...

From INTELLIGENT LIFE magazine, Summer 2008

Roger Federer usually behaves perfectly. He speaks as gracefully as he plays. He can conduct post-match press conferences in four languages. These things seem to come as naturally to Federer as being the greatest tennis player of all time. How cold, people say. How Swiss!

Perhaps nobody likes a goody two-shoes. That was Prince Hal's advice in Shakespeare's "Henry IV, Part I":

And so when this loose behaviour I throw off,
...My reformation glittering o'er my fault,
Shall show more goodly, and attract more eyes,
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.

Everyone warms to a reformed character, Hal argues. People will love you for it all the more.

The opposite is also true, as Federer has discovered: if you start out impeccably, people search for any sign of moral decline or hypocrisy. After losing to Andy Murray in March, Federer was accused of gracelessness. What was the nature of the insult? He suggested that Murray might have to expand his game. Nasty stuff.

Federer gives the lie to several sporting clichés. First, he exposes the myth that all great champions must behave badly. Tyson chewed off part of Holyfield's ear; Zidane head-butted Materazzi; McEnroe screamed at umpires. They're all like that, aren't they? No, they're not. What about Bjorn Borg, Garry Sobers and Bobby Jones junior? Some are saints, some sinners. It's as unscientific as that.

But we live in a time of sporting moral equivalency. Most pundits, often ex-players, find moderately bad behaviour quaintly reassuring--it legitimises their own outlook. The really threatening thing is to behave well. That is what Federer is up against.

Federer turns 27 this summer. He has already won 12 Grand Slam singles titles (only the French Open eludes him) and appeared in a record ten consecutive men's Grand Slam finals. In March, he became Laureus World Sportsman of the Year for the fourth consecutive year. If he wins Wimbledon again this time, it will be for the sixth time in a row--beating the record he currently shares with Borg.

But recently his dominance has slipped. This year he lost in the semi-finals of the Australian Open, then in the first round at Dubai and again in the semis at the Indian Wells Masters. Since drifting apart from Tony Roche last year, Federer has not had an official coach. And though he seemed preoccupied by the forthcoming French Open, he bizarrely found time to play against the retired Pete Sampras in an exhibition game at Madison Square Garden in late March.

Now the idea is circulating that Federer is losing his hunger. What might keep him motivated? Rivalry, one suspects, is a bit beneath him. He and Rafael Nadal have enjoyed some great encounters, but you don't sense that personalising conflict helps to inspire him. He is not an innate pugilist.

Different things drive different egos. Some womanisers are happy with simply the most beautiful in the room--and there is always another evening and a new room. A different type of womaniser wants to seduce the most beautiful woman in the world. But what then?

So it is in sport. One type of champion lives for the fight, the thrill of battle. Winning is like a habit they cannot kick. The other sort of champion, the Federer type, dreams more of mastery. But mastery is total; once achieved, it can only subside. It is winning, not losing, that makes Federer act out of character--dropping to his knees, or lying flat on his back on the Wimbledon turf, in joyous disbelief. Why the surprise? When he is on form, especially on grass, he scarcely loses a set. Is the emotion real or imagined? Does Federer really cherish the moment of victory, the last point of the championship, as much as he claims to? I suspect his favourite point is actually a perfect backhand, hidden in the middle of a non-pivotal rally, unnoticed by people who watch the score, but unforgettable to those looking out for mastery.

Federer has dominated tennis as Tiger Woods has ruled golf. But with Federer there is no trace of angsty chippiness. Conventional sporting wisdom is suspicious of so well-adjusted a champion. Can he sustain it? Will he keep his stomach for the fight? He'll lose hunger, you watch.

Maybe he will; maybe he has. But for many of us, Federer has not only played better than anyone, he has lived sport on a higher level. Many sportsmen owe their success to huge efforts of willpower. But with Federer, like Schubert, the score seems to have written itself.

Three factors work against him. One is straightforward jealousy. A second is the misconception that getting bored with being brilliant is somehow reprehensible. If Federer eventually becomes bored, why shouldn't he? We are in his debt, not he in ours. The third is the curse of over-professionalism. Where amateurism eulogised effortlessness, our professional mindset is suspicious of success without the sweat and tears of conspicuous suffering. Paradoxically, professionalism has compromised the primacy of performance--soap opera counts for just as much. Federer doesn't care for soap opera. If only we could reach up to his level, not demand he gets down to ours.

And so the question "Has he hurt enough?" seems to follow him around. But best of all, unlike Prince Hal, he doesn't seem to care.

WIMBLEDON June 23rd to July 6th

(Ed Smith is captain of Middlesex County Cricket Club. He has played baseball and written several books, including "What Sport Tells Us About Life")