!Rog by Pete Bodo
It's funny, but the day after we at Tennis magazine committed to covering the upcoming USA vs. Switzerland Davis Cup tie in Birmingham, Ala., I wandered into Steve Tignor's office and said, "You know, this is going to be great - if Roger doesn't pull out."
Steve laughed and said, "Yeah, but I don't think he'll do that."
I said that I wasn't so sure - although he's got an outstanding record against the Americans, and the Davis Cup tie segues nicely into the hard court season, I had to wonder what he was thinking and feeling after his loss to Rafael Nadal in the Australian Open final. Besides, I've felt since the middle of 2008 that Federer is at the point where he ought to conduct a complete reassessment of his objectives going forward, and how to best realize them: How do I get major no.14, and can I get there from here?.
Ironically, winning the US Open in 2008 may have forestalled this critical moment of stock-taking, and the not entirely predictable - or comfortable - monologue that might ensue. But, I felt, Federer was probably at the point where he needed to climb a high peak unlike those he's in the habit of visiting, and look down upon a valley not merely strewn with the corpses of his rivals, but the topography of his career. Then, after some study, he might ask himself: Okay, where do I go from here?
I still think it's inevitable that Federer gets off the treadmill that rules a top player's life no less powerfully than that of a journeyman's - the key difference being that a journeyman doesn't make headlines, draw the ire of critics, or cause hand-wringing among his fans if he decides to skip a couple of Challenger events and a 250 event (or an International Series tournament, in the King James version). This was not a question of "if", but "when." And part of me thinks that "when" might be now.
This strikes me as a significant move and a fairly strong statement. The Mighty Fed has withdrawn from from an event where he would be the center of attention to an even greater degree than at a major (which makes his decision that much more attention getting), and one that had many novel and even charming dimensions even for a Davis Cup tie. Let's face it - nobody ever confused Birmingham with southwest London, the Shea stadium stop on the no. 7 train, or the red-clay fortress girded by the Bois d'Boulogne and the Peripherique. Was this an assertion of autonomy, or a fair impersonation of a deer caught in the headlights? We saw what happened when Nadal pulled out of the Davis Cup final vs. Argentina late last year, although the temptation to question the legitimacy of Nadal's move simply didn't seem as compelling.
This USA vs Switzerland tie, while less crucial than last year's final, also had greater resonance here in the US (I can't alter that fact that I am, after all, an American, and inclined to focus on events and issues that impact the domestic game). But even on a broader scale, this upcoming Davis Cup tie seemed to be building to a whole greater than the sum of its parts - the way a tie between Serbia and Spain might, if it were held in a second or even third-tier Serbian city. Pat McEnroe told me weeks ago that the USTA had been swamped with even more media credential requests than it had been for the final against Russia in Portland in 2007, and that he spent a good bit of his time in Melbourne (while on the job as an ESPN commentator) giving interviews focused on this upcoming tie. McEnroe was surprised - and delighted - by the buzz the tie was generating.
So while I had a gut feeling this Federer might pull out, for reasons that at the time had little to do with rumors that his back was injured. Granted, he has not exactly made Davis Cup a high priority, although he has said that in 2009 it is. And there was a powerful, two-pronged reason for Federer to meet this commitment: First, pulling out would be a buzz-kill of the highest magnitude, and only the most bewitched of Federer partisans could take it lightly; Second, given the circumstances, the decision would really stimulate the What's Wrong With Roger? conversation in a way that taking a pass on Dubai, Monte Carlo, or Cincinnati would not. Anyone willing to unleash those hounds would have to be in serious disarray, or so coolly self-assured that even behind closed hotel room doors, the chattering would be dismissed as insignificant white noise. Discount that latter possibility at your peril; this is Roger Federer we're talking about.
It may seem uncharitable to second-guess Federer's motivations or the degree of his injury, but the nature of the situation almost demands it, at least for a journalist, whose job it is to ask tough questions and perform due diligence. This is less a question of whether or not TMF is injured than a question of just how incapacitated he is and, secondarily, how realistic it is for him, at age 27 and with a load of Grand Slam miles on his clock, to expect to be in perfect physical health (which of the top players is?) at every event he plays. Federer's decision to by-pass Birmingham is no small thing. And you can reason your way into a few good reasons for scrutinizing his withdrawal:
1- The last we saw of Roger, he went five sets tough with Rafael Nadal in a major final and showed no sign of physical distress.
2 - His decision was announced weeks after he played his last match in Melbourne, and shortly before the start of Dubai; if his injury is that serious, wouldn't he have known it and made it a matter of record sooner - especially in light of the fact that he was giving his opponents no advantage, due the break in his scheduling?
3 - Nobody ever just pulls out of tournaments anymore; injury, especially hard-to-diagnose injury, is the trump card every player holds, and it's the thing that keeps him from being a slave to the system. Personally, I prefer this imperfect honor system to all the alternatives, but that's neither here nor there.
4 - To my mind, this is the big if most speculative one. For the second year in a row, Federer lost at the Australian Open, and for the second year in a row an injury/illness narrative has slowly emerged, and taken on a life of its own. And it has emerged long enough after the event to shield Federer from being accused of excuse-making, but soon enough to be absorbed into the conventional wisdom. I'm not saying this is spin, but I am saying that if you wanted to spin the losses, you couldn't do it in a better, more artful way.
Still, nobody is inside the guy's back - maybe it really is killing him, and he had hoped until the last moment that he would be able to play in Dubai and Birmingham. It would also be pointless to expect him to play if he doesn't feel up to it - for any reason. By the same token, it strikes me as willfully naive to believe that the three extra days of theoretical rest is worth more to Federer - in terms of his conditioning and fitness, after he's had over a month off - than the preparation for Indian Wells that the Davis Cup provided in the form of match play. Either this guy is a lot more hurt than he's let on, or less motivated, for any number of reasons, than we expect or hope.
I'm inclined to interpret it this way: Federer has arrived at what is the third stage in every great player's career. In the first stage, which begins when a player makes his pro debut, he (or she) fights like all get-out to establish himself as an impact player. In the second stage, which usually includes the Golden Age, he dominates to whatever degree he can, insatiably gobbling up titles, money and rankings points, in a Zen-like state of career-bliss. At this level, the player basks in glory, takes pride in what he's doing for The Game, and very often develops a healthy to excessive sense of his own value. It doesn't seem quite fair, but that's why God made the third stage: It's that period when the reality of tennis mortality sinks in, and the piper demands to be paid. A player, while still a young man, begins to sense that things may be slipping away, and - if he's any kind of champion at all (and remember, there's no law saying he must be,) he pulls out all the stops and kicks and claws to keep his place at or near the top.
At the third stage, all that baloney about being a role model goes out the window, even as the player is wiser, and more in cognizant of what he's doing. Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras were very good at being ambassadors for the game, even with the grind was wearing them thin, boring them to tears, or failing to motivate them as it once did. Bjorn Borg, by contrast, remained remarkably callow through his career (and he paid dearly for it in the afterlife). To some extent, he was driven out of the game by the establishment for daring to say what almost all of these guys at some level think, but are smart enough not to articulate: I've proven my worth, I've done great things for the game, I want to be free to do what I want in the few years left to me.
The establishment replied: Can't have any of that, Bjorn, your honesty is toxic!
One of Borg's endearing qualities, albeit a self-injurious one, was his absolute lack of guile.
At the third stage, the high-minded determination to avoid mind games and shrewd jockeying for advantage or position get shoved into the trash compactor. At the third stage, a champion jettisons baggage like his sense of obligation to The Game; he may thumb his nose at the rules of engagement that he once embraced, and he sometimes turns his back on people (including fans) who hang on his every word. He realizes something that he knew all along, but could afford to ignore when he was flush with youth, ambition, skill, and predatory eyes: I'm in this for myself; I can't afford to belong to everybody anymore, because that extra major or two is worth more than all that other stuff combined. . .
Sounds horrible, doesn't it? But it isn't, really. Because this guy is a champion, and while many champions (including Federer) have been nice guys, are nice guys, that is what champions do. It's part of what makes them different from you and me, and one of the reasons we alternately or even simultaneously love, admire, envy and trash them. And hey - it's not like they're vested with the responsibilities of a pastor, a parent, or an officer charged with ensuring the safety of his troops.
In a conference call on Tuesday, US Davis Cup captain Pat McEnroe was asked if he was disappointed by Federer's decision to pull out - a move that ruined what was taking shape as a wonderful story: Roger and Mirka go to Birmingham, yee-hah! He replied:
"To be honest, I was a little disappointed, really. . . (but) a big part of the reason that we've been able to have such a great turn out anticipated in Birmingham is mostly due to our team and the fact that these guys have been such strong supporters of the Davis Cup for so many years. . . (but) I would be lying if I didn't say Roger didn't have something to do with that as well. He doesn't play Davis Cup that often, and to see him playing in our country would have been exciting for tennis."
Of course, you're entitled to ask, Why should Federer give a hang about taking tennis to Birmingham, Alabama, a place in which it's unlikely he'll ever set foot again?
My only answer is one that reflects a strong prejudice: Because it's Davis Cup - the second greatest institution in tennis (after the aggregate called the majors). I've seen plenty of top players take a pass on Davis Cup, and it's certainly tougher to work up a lot of enthusiasm for the event when you come from Switzerland, whose chance of winning the competition, even with Federer in yoke, has been pretty slim. But the lack of his significant impact in Davis Cup is a blemish on Federer's otherwise stellar record, at least for those of us who care about such things.
This is a more significant issue now that the Swiss have a worthy no. 2 man in Stan Wawrinka. This year, Federer had a shot at adding a Davis Cup win to his resume, to join other underdog winners like Sweden (winners over the former Czechoslovakia in 1975, thanks to newly emerging star Bjorn Borg) and Czechoslovakia itself, when Ivan Lendl led the squad to the final round win over Italy in 1980.
McEnroe was also asked if he saw anything in Melbourne that would suggest that Federer was struggling with injury, and the short version is that he did not. But he passed along some intel from Jose Higueras, who recently coached Federer, but has since taken a job as McEnroe's no. 2 man in the USTA player development programs. Higueras told McEnroe that while he was with Federer, the player had now and then complained of back troubles (I don't have access to the transcript as I write this, but I will sub it out with the full quote tomorrow morning from the office).
Whether the main issue here is Federer's back or his head is a subject worthy of debate. Who knows, maybe it's a little bit of both.