SUSO

Few people have discovered themselves with the majesty and the intimacy of Roger Federer.

W / TIMOTHY COLLINS
P / NOMA BAR

Inside a sumptuous salon in the Hotel Palacio Estoril, one of Portugal’s grandest, Roger Federer glides silently through a set of double doors.

It is the day before the presentation ceremonies for the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year award, and the Swiss tennis magician has arrived directly from Hamburg where, the previous day, he had defeated Richard Gasquet of France to win a Masters Series tournament, his nineteenth title victory in succession. He has every right to be tired.

Federer is the only one of six nominees for the award to have flown in for the pre-event formalities. The others – racing driver Michael Schumacher, cyclist Lance Armstrong, motorcyclist Valentino Rossi, swimmer Michael Phelps and runner Hicham El Guerrouj – are all detained elsewhere. As always, the man from Basel wants to be there himself, to stay in control and make sure he gives everyone a share of his time. Any sense of fatigue is invisible.

“Hello, nice to meet you, I’m Roger,” he says, hand outstretched as he introduces himself. He wears clean jeans, clean trainers, a T-shirt and a loose jumper. He is relaxed and friendly; but he answers questions with a focussed precision. It is a very rare day that sees the multi-Grand Slam winner caught off guard.

It is May, 2005. Federer is the Wimbledon champion, establishing himself as arguably the greatest tennis player of all time and certainly the most accomplished and artistic of the modern era. It is to be three years later, deep into the late summer months of 2008, and only after being defeated at Wimbledon by Spaniard Rafael Nadal in one of the greatest finals, an epic five-setter that captured the imagination, that he is deposed at number one in the world rankings after an amazing 238 weeks alone at the summit of his game.

The forces, the nature and the genius that took him there, however, were as clear then on the Portuguese coast that spring morning as at any time in his illustrious career, from child prodigy to acclaimed master of the tennis universe. Courteous, humorous, meticulous, reflective and respectful, he revealed also that he is dedicated, single-minded, competitive, demanding and professional.

“I want to do my best, always, and to raise my game, to play as well as I can, at the highest standards I can achieve, because it is not only, or just, about winning, or about the titles and the tournaments,” he says. “But, of course, they do count. That is why I wanted for so long to climb the rankings, to reach the top, to win at Wimbledon and to stay as the number one. It all means a lot to me. When I was young, I watched the television and it was what I dreamed about. Now I am living my dream. Tennis is my life.”

Looking ahead that year to the French Open, the clay court tournament that has proved so elusive to him that he has yet to win it a single time despite a collection of 12 Grand Slam titles, he was able to joke about carrying on for many years until he won it in his dotage. He heaped praise, too, on his rivals and talked with respect about Nadal, the bullish and muscular man from Majorca who has since emerged to dominate the tennis stage.

"I had to get rid of the demons in my head, and I did it, but it came from me. I had to take control."

Then, as now, as he struggles to rekindle the consistent form that was his trademark for five years, Federer was capable of seeing a bigger picture. He always has been. As a boy, he wanted only to play tennis and win at Wimbledon, on what he has called “those holy lawns”, or to play football for his hometown club FC Basel. One of his early idols was, unsurprisingly, the American Pete Sampras, who lifted the Wimbledon trophy seven times in eight years and won 14 Grand Slams, but never in Paris.

Yet like the extraordinary champion that he is, Federer can see not only the big picture, but also focus on the smaller one. Sensitive and vulnerable, so much so that he has gained fame and admirers for his tears of relief and triumph on Centre Court, he has had to overcome his inner demons, control his once-wild outbursts of frustration and anger, and cope with years of incessant pressure and expectation. He has had to discover himself in the glare of global celebrity. His famed mental strength, an ability to stay in the zone and shut out distractions, together with his great sense of calm at the most stressful moments of matches balanced on a knife-edge, has been his key on-court asset just as his widescreen vision of the world has made him so charming and likeable off it.

And it is these parallel, complementary strengths, as well as his astonishing levels of skill, athleticism and sheer artistry with a tennis racquet that have been the foundation stones of his career. He condemns all negativity. Asked what five adjectives he would use to describe himself, he says: ”Honest, positive, open, laid-back, happy… No negative adjectives; I leave that to others. I’m positive.”

This positive outlook helps him to block out or eliminate anything that might bring down his mindset or his performance, providing, of course, that his physical – and therefore psychological – condition is good. Alas, for Federer, 2008 has seen him trying to maintain his almost gravity-defying standards while battling with the aftermath of glandular fever.

“I could play,” he says now, looking back on his lacklustre run to the Australian Open semi-finals in Melbourne, “and that was what was so amazing. I got up and I played a five-setter against Janko Tipsarevic when it was at its worst. I hope I didn’t take any health risks.” He was not diagnosed with the sickness until February, a month after the tournament, and that, like the courage and grit he showed in his recovery from two sets down at Wimbledon against Nadal, showed that he is made of the right stuff. Before and after everything else, Federer is a fighter.

With a tennis racquet in his hand, he hates to lose; and he also hates to play poorly or to see the rules broken or ignored. He loves tennis, and it’s this that gives him the competitive edge and sense of purpose that has helped him to exercise his talent and desire, but it also hampers his mind management at times. In the early days, he had tantrums; not now. “I’m a horrible loser and I used to be really bad about losing in card games or in board games,” he explains. “When I lost at chess to my father, I’d knock all the pieces to the floor, but I don’t do things like that anymore. I’ve mellowed out and I’m much more relaxed. My successes have helped. I don’t mind losing quite so much anymore… I changed. I used to think that anyone who beat me was a jerk, but I have got to know the people I play against now and I like them.”

It was Federer’s realisation, in his late teenage years, that he had to let his tennis talent flow without rancour that enabled him to transform himself into the champion that he became. Asked in Shanghai, during interviews at the 2005 Tennis Masters Cup tournament, how he managed to remain so friendly when he was chased by so many fans, he had a simple, but revealing, answer: “Why should I be unpleasant when I can just as well be nice? That’s how easy it is for me.” He was relishing his role as number one at the time, translating the demands for his time into a positive energy source that he could draw upon when he was mining the depths of himself for inspiration.

Federer himself gives little away about his mental preparation, but his work with sports psychologist Chris Marcolli from 1998 to 2000 has been a major factor, as was his physical conditioning work with Pierre Paganini, who launched him on an endurance programme from December 2000. By 2003, the Federer of championship triumphs had emerged. “I had the energy and stamina to stay calm, to play all the way,” he says. “I had to get rid of the demons in my head and I did it, but it came from me. I had to take control.

“Today, still, I’m always telling myself, ‘Can’t you wait and think about that another time!’” he says. “It is just impossible to focus for an entire match. You are wandering around, sitting, looking into the crowd and seeing someone that reminds you of something. It isn’t a bad thing. You get tired of your mind always being in one place all the time. I try to block something out, but it always comes back.”

This acceptance of a need for moments of relief is another part of the mind management Federer uses, keeping himself relaxed, preventing too much stress or pressure from creeping into his normally fluid and flowing game. Some have said that Federer’s success has turned him into a beautiful bird trapped in a gilded cage, or a man lost on the desert highway of a lonely planet populated only by the outstanding number ones of world sport – people like Tiger Woods or Michael Schumacher or Pete Sampras – but he shrugs that aside. He has feet firmly rooted in Swiss soil, and he’s in no danger of losing his perspective or feeling imprisoned. In his celebrity, he walks free.

Federer, the boy wonder with dreams and a temper, has always known that he was playing himself as much anything.

“It is not as though you can ever really get used to being number one in the world,” he explains. “For me, there was always that pressure, but it is there at every tournament. It is there from fans, sponsors, the media and, of course, not least, myself. I expect such a lot from myself. I try always to give everything that I have. It doesn’t matter whether the tournament is in Basel or Estoril or in Hamburg or at Wimbledon. I always try to do my best. I feel completely fine about it. I like the excitement around me. I realise I may not be as free as a bird, but I feel that life is fine for me. I can live pretty much a normal life. I don’t have a problem in Switzerland or in Dubai. And on tour I’m ready for a problem. I’m at hotels and there are fans. They expect me to be there and to sign autographs. It is the job I wanted and I love it. I am living my dream. For me, my life is perfect.”

As this year’s results have shown, however, time and travel can take their toll on a tired and sometimes-sick body. Federer, the boy wonder with dreams and a temper, has always known that he was playing himself as much as the opponent across the net. He learned he had to match his demons and personal demands with a serenity that worked and a physical strength that was completely reliable. And then he found himself playing history and the record books – after his recent US Open win, only one more Grand Slam title to equal Sampras; just one in Paris to complete a classic Grand Slam collection. Finally, perhaps this summer past, he realised he is now also playing against time itself.

The younger legs of hungrier men are chasing him. Nadal has reached the top. The age of supremacy is ending and with it has come a new challenge: to rise again. Roger is 27, and at such a young age has no intention of relinquishing his place at the top for long. Clearly, he has the attributes required of a champion. As sports psychologist Martin Perry wrote: “When the heat is on, the champion must find the defiance that says, ‘There is no way I am relinquishing my title – it will simply not happen.’ This defiance is born out of the pride of being a champion. The pride of what it has taken to reach this level of excellence. The pride of the lineage of champions that you are connected to – the Lavers, McEnroes, Beckers and Samprases… You don’t just represent you. You represent them as well.”

Federer has many skins. He is inscrutable if you are looking for the inner man, the ego that is remote from the focused tennis player or cosmopolitan globetrotter. Yet that man has the colder strengths that led him, at 19, to oust Switzerland’s Davis Cup captain Jakob Hlasek; to overcome his grief at the loss of personal coach and friend Australian Peter Carter at 21, and to split with his Swedish coach of four years Peter Lundgren in 2004, when he was only 23. On his own, without a coach, he became a world-beater. His independent streak, his desire for total control, suited him. He worked hard and thought deeply.

“To beat him, something has to be not working for him and you have to play the craziest tennis you have ever played,” said Andre Agassi. “But you can’t just talk about his talent. You have to respect him for the hard work, the discipline and the dedication and the attitude that he brings to the court – again and again.”

Tony Godsick, Federer’s long-serving agent at IMG adds that it was his ability to compartmentalise his life that helped Federer so much. “He can do that so well,” he says. “As good a winner as he is, he’s a better loser. He can leave it behind when it is over and done.” This mental realism, his ability to absorb and analyse and then create a new plan, has been a consistent strength for a man who, with perhaps the widest array of perfectly executed shots in tennis history, has always striven for perfection.

Federer condemns all negativity.

“He moves like a whisper and he executes like a wrecking ball,” said the tennis coach Nick Bollettieri in 2005. “He is a genius, a magician, an athlete of such complete mental and physical power and calm combined that he is, I believe, unique in the history of tennis.”

Federer himself, who has dedicated his life to playing perfect tennis in a style that brings honour to the sport, has remained modest throughout it all. He never boasts, always expects a fall and respects his opponents. He is also truly self-critical.

“When I was young, in my early days, I wanted to show everybody what I was capable of, to play all the difficult strokes that I had mastered. But at some point it became clear to me that I would get more attention if I were among the top players in the world and played on the big courts. I think that talent alone is not enough. I believe talent alone brought me into the top ten in the world rankings, but after that I had to take a few extra steps because the matches are so physically and mentally demanding – and talent alone is not sufficient. You have to prepare well, work hard and be dedicated. And you must keep working and keep thinking and stay at the highest level in everything you do.” Federer is testament to his own truths.