More Reflections On The Greatness of Roger Federer
At this point it’s pretty redundant to make grand proclamations about Roger Federer. His latest Aussie Open win had to usher in a flood of new think-pieces about the man’s greatness but nothing really changed, we just updated the numbers a little. He was already the consensus Best Ever like six years ago so there really isn’t much more to add to the story after that. But… bugger it, here we go anyway.
What’s most remarkable about Roger Federer’s career is obviously that grace with which he’s always played. Professional sports is so often about endurance and physical brutality and utter determination yet here’s this dude who transcended the sport he plays by appearing more bullfighter than bull. Skipping when others are crawling, singing when others are groaning, laughing when others are crying… and then crying after he’s done winning. He’s Tom freakin’ Bombadil.
We know that’s only perception. Federer clearly works as hard if not harder than anyone else and the aesthetics of his game may be lovely but it’s easy to get swept up in the highlight reels without considering the shanks and the faults and the ugly returns. There are plenty of those too. He’s only human.
Point being that the reputation that Federer’s amassed, a reputation influenced by his also being a very nice chap as well as a dominant athlete, tends to get in the way of a lot of the analysis of the guy’s career. He’s too beloved to critique.
Hence with this latest incredible run of championships – winning three of the last five grand slam titles – it’s easy to forget that his record total of grand slams was very much in danger not so long ago. Go back a few years and it was a valid question: would Roger Federer win another grand slam? It didn’t seem to matter when he clearly just loved playing tennis so much but his game was slipping notably, his once indomitable abilities were on the slide.
In 2013 he lost to Sergiy Stakhovsky in the second round at Wimbledon. He was defending champ and hadn’t missed the quarterfinals at a grand slam event since the 2004 French. He didn’t make a GS final that year. He made only one the following, losing to Novak Djokovic at Wimbledon. The following year he lost to the same bloke in four sets in the final of both Wimbledon and the US Open. Then came the knee injury, which eventually ruled him out of the 2016 French Open – the first grand slam event he’d missed after a record 65 consecutive main draws.
Just think about some of that for a second. The sheer longevity of what he’d done… and then even his slide was graceful and prolonged. But what we never really thought would happen was that from that long break out, which appeared to change his perspective on the sport by making him more selective about not needing to play every tournament (he also missed the 2016 US Open and 2017 French Open as well as the 2016 Olympics), would completely reinvigorate his career in his mid-30s.
For a while there it seemed that, while he’d probably never achieve the beloved status of Federer, Rafael Nadal would eventually catch his number of grand slams. Injuries of his own had limited the peak of his career but through it all he continued to win on clay, winning nine out of ten French Opens between 2005 and 2014 – Federer winning it in 2009. After winning the 2014 French, he had 14 GS titles. Federer had 17 and hadn’t won since 2012 Wimbledon. Yet already by then there was another joker out there hunting that record. Or rather: Djoker.
Novak Djokovic won three out of four grand slams in 2011 and by the middle of 2016 he’d won 12 all up. All power to the gluten-free diet and a healthy repertoire of meditation, apparently. Djokovic never had the grace or flourish of Federer but at his best he’s a thrilling athlete in his own way. Yet suddenly he’s copping a few knocks as well. That guy turned 30 last March and he hasn’t made it past the quarters of a Grand Slam event since. Rafa Nadal is 31 and coming off two GS titles in 2017, including the US Open which was his first non-French GS title for four years. It’s fair to say he hasn’t been the same since his back issues began, although he finished 2017 as the year-end number one. A hip injury ended his 2018 Australian Open in the quarters, though.
Then here’s Roger Federer out there bloody winning tournament after tournament like he never went away. Because that’s the thing: he never did. He’s five years older than Nadal and maintaining better. It seems like he’s done with clay court tennis now but at the 2017 Wimbledon event he made the final without dropping a single set. He didn’t drop one in the final against Marin Cilic either, something only Bjorn Borg had ever done at Wimbledon in the Open Era. He didn’t drop one at the 2018 Aussie until the final against Cilic went five sets either.
20 Grand Slam Titles. Twenty of them. Rafa Nadal is up to 16 and only three other men in the Open Era have even won ten (Bjorn Borg - 11, Djokovic – 12 & Pete Sampras - 14). Federer’s now the second oldest man to win a slam in the OE, trailing Ken Rosewall’s 1972 Australian triumph aged 37 years and two months. Federer is currently 36 years and five months. He’s got a way to go to beat Arthur Gore’s record of being 41 and a half when he won the 1909 Wimbledon tournament but if he wins anything in 2019 then he’ll be the next oldest ever champion. Ken Rosewall is also one of the youngest ever champs, having won aged 18y & 2m in Australia in 1953 – 19 full years between his first and final title. Fed’s first came in the 2003 Wimbledon tourney, so not even a mere 15 years in between. But Federer’s won three grand slams since turning 35 at a time of full professionalism and in a sport that’s notoriously taxing on the body.
There’s a lot to be said about the way he’s adapted his game for his age, trying to shorten points by embracing the ol’ serve and volley for example. Or going for a heavier racquet. Coaching changes as well. But everyone does that stuff, it doesn’t necessarily mean success – if anything it hints at a lack of success prior.
Which is why this last year and a half for Roger Federer, combined with his borderline unfeasible record of health and activity throughout his career, simply doesn’t make sense. Andy Murray once famously shed tiers on the podium after losing to Federer in the 2012 Aussie Open. “I can cry like Roger, it's a shame I can't play like him,” he said afterwards. Back then Muzza was yet to win a title and was copping plenty of British expectation. He finally snapped the drought at the 2012 US Open and has won a couple Wimbledons as well. He has three grand slam titles having come up in the shadow of Federer and Nadal then losing five out of his seven GS finals against Novak Djokovic, a man only a week’s difference to him in age. Now he’s undergone hip surgery that could derail the rest of his career and all the while Roger Federer has matched Murray’s three titles in the space of five tournaments (and he didn’t even enter one of those).
He’s more myth than man and the more you try to ground his achievements in reality, the more they stand out against it. Imagine if Michael Jordan had, instead of flashing his mortality, actually won titles when he came back with the Washington Wizards. That’s what Federer’s doing now.
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