OVER the course of 19 years, 1378 matches, 95 titles, 19 Grand Slam wins, and a total of $109m in prize money, Roger Federer has comprehensively re-written the parameters of a professional tennis career. All Mark Hodgkinson has tried to do is arm himself with an encyclopaedic knowledge of it all. As the Swiss tennis legend jets into Scotland for the first time in the next few days, ahead of his appearance in Tuesday night’s Andy Murray Live exhibition event at the SSE Hydro, anyone attempting to fill in the blanks when it comes to the Swiss legend’s extraordinary life in sport could do far worse than check out Fedegraphica, the statistic and infographic-packed biography compiled by this London-based tennis author and journalist. Propose an encyclopaedia of your jobbing Scottish footballer and any self-respecting publisher would laugh you out of town. Yet so remarkable has Federer’s further rejuvenation in 2017 been, that Hodgkinson has already been commissioned to write an updated edition based on this year’s exploits.
Fittingly, the book starts, not at Federer’s very beginnings in the Swiss city of Basel, but with his new beginnings on a practice court in Mason, Ohio ,in the company of Davis Cup captain and long-time assistant coach Severin Luthi and hitting partner Benoit Paire in the late summer of 2015. Jet-lagged, fatigued by the heat and ever-so-slightly demoralised following his defeat to Novak Djokovic in that year’s Wimbledon final, there was a temptation to cut his first practice of the American hard court swing short. Instead, as Hodgkinson relates, he agreed but said he would be keeping the points as short as possible and would be ‘kidding around’. So it was that the tactic ‘Sneak Attack By Roger’ crystallised into being, a modern-day serve and volleying innovation which had been partially showcased in that year’s staccato SW19 semi-final victory against Andy Murray, where a monumentally accurate serving day was followed up by some bravura volleying and half volleying.
Fast forward to 2017, and fine tuning such tactics has allowed the Swiss great’s body to last better than the likes of Murray and Djokovic, racking up Grand Slam wins in Australia and Wimbledon - the latter of which was the second time he had claimed a major without dropping during his career. The word genius is casually thrown around at sportsmen such as Federer and Lionel Messi – he has been called “the closest thing tennis comes to performance art” - but in fact these instincts are shaped by years and years of meticulous honing of his craft. Like how Andre Agassi claimed he could get a read on Boris Becker’s serve just by watching the direction that he stuck his tongue out on his ball toss, you can’t play 1378 matches at the sharp end of our sport without it becoming second nature.
It is all here – diverting personal details and a deep dive into what people might call the xs and os. Did you know, for instance, that his unflappable temperament might have something to with the fact his dad Robert - who incidentally plans to combine his trip to Glasgow with some golf tourism - once abandoned him as a child in snow at the side of the road to make a point about his temper? Or the fact his wife Mirka, a former WTA tennis player herself, has been known to be his hitting partner on the morning of Grand Slam finals?
How about the fact Federer ran just 1.6km per match to Murray’s 2.9km during the 2015 US Open, how he generates more spin on his backhand than the rest of the so-called fab four, or how he sets up the point by dragging opponents down the T when serving to the deuce court and wide to the advantage court? “It’s a combination of a normal autobiography and the statistics which make him so interesting,” Hodgkinson told Herald Sport. “But the fascination is clear; they have the annual awards with the ATP and Roger has won the popularity award for the last 14 years. He was obviously incredibly popular but I think people missed him and realised what tennis might be like without him.
“The three years between 2004 and 2007 is seen as his prime but most people think he is playing better at 36,” Hodgkinson added. “He won’t finish No 1, but that is because he only played three of the four Grand Slams, and four of the nine Masters series. His two sets of twins were at SW19 this year and he got quite emotional looking up at them. I am sure if Mirka told him it was time to stop he would do that pretty much straight away. But the first operation he had in his career was last year and he didn’t injure himself on court, he injured himself running a bath. Just being a father, rather than scrambling around the back of the court.” With Murray still playing his way back from his hip problems, both men may keep points short and ‘kid around’ on Tuesday night. But it still promises to be quite a show.
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