By Pete Bodo
One of the welcome elements in the unfolding saga of Roger Federer is that he gives someone with an inquiring (or perhaps just mischievous) mind a fair amount with which to play around. That's because Federer is different and not just in the way that's enabled him to shatter the Grand Slam singles title record (he has 15, as of last Sunday at Wimbledon); he's also created an image that draws attention to himself in a way that can be chuckled at just as easily as it can be admired and even envied.
It took a cruel or spiteful streak to make fun of someone like Pete Sampras, but not an Andre Agassi. The former, you sensed, was always just himself, and he remains the ultimate conservative representative of the genus, "tennis professional." Agassi, of course, was different, and for that he sometimes paid. The same is true for Federer, albeit in a different way. That "down to earth" Federer who delighted most everyone, that youngster with the pony tail whose preferred dress was a t-shirt and jeans, and who liked to sit "criss-cross applesauce" on the floor of the locker room under his headphones is a manboy of the past.
The image we now have of Federer, the one that makes as many eyes roll as dance, was probably achieved with a great deal of help from his main sponsor, Nike. And it's a tribute - if that's the right word - to that company's marketing division that the message they want to send via The Mighty Fed (with his consent, of course) was so prominently displayed at Wimbledon, which has always taken great pains to avoid the appearance, if not the reality, of commercialization. Just as Agassi's experimental, somewhat playful nature invited Nike to push the style and image envelope (interestingly, Nike backed off such shenanigans at Wimbledon - Agassi always played there in plain white), Federer's interest in fashion and style-consciousness gave Nike the motivation and confidence to have a far greater impact at Wimbledon than ever before. Who ever even knew what Sampras wore?
And don't think that sports agents and marketers are blind to or above shaping a player's image. Do you think Andy Murray has curbed his moping and decided to iron out the rough spots in his Scottish brogue on his own? Do you think LaCoste paid Andy Roddick for the quality of his serve, or to make use of his image as a testosterone-besotted American stud to seduce a broader pool of customers - some of whom may have been put off by the fact that LaCoste always seemed a bit, well. . . twee.
Federer, it turns out, is an ideal marketing partner, and a natural-born wingman. This is an enormous contradiction, given the degree of his accomplishments and fundamentals of his character, but there it is. Anna Wintour and her ilk like to collect celebrities, and it's pretty clear that Roger has no problem whatsoever being the brightest, shiniest, most appealing bauble in her collection. Sometimes, the vanity of a great athlete is so powerful that is simply wouldn't occur to him - or her - that he's being shaped and/or used. Do you think Serena Williams dated Brett Ratner because she's got a thing for hirsute older men with big tummies? Maybe, maybe not. What I am pretty sure about, though, is that it would never occur to personalities such as these that they're beloved for any reason beyond their wonderful selves.
This matters because Federer is not only a great tennis player, he's the great tennis player, holding the game aloft on his shoulders like a modern-day Atlas. And the extent to which he's checked off on creating a specific image undermines the degree to which he transcends image, for the sharper the image, the more likely it is put off as well as attract. We're still different people with different tastes, values and aspirations, and the further you drift from pure performance and personal conduct (as well as the norm in your peer group), the less representative you become.
Sampras, for example, was representative of the traditional tennis player; TMF has been shaped to represent the outrageously successful and gifted tennis player, and that's a different thing. The image is accurate, of course, but to many it seems like he's rubbing the world's face in his genius; it can be irritating because everyone knows that talent is a gift, not something earned.
In one critical way, though, Federer's image is wholly accurate. It suggests that he's led a life lined with gold, a charmed life - nothing has reinforced that more than the events of the last few weeks, in which he's completed a remarkable turnaround from beleaguered and puzzling champ into the back-to-back winner at Roland Garros and Wimbledon. As he said the other day: "I don't know if I've had a more happy period in my tennis life. I don't know if I can ever top this. These last months, with all the records on the line, and coming through both times. . . knowing what it means to me, it's quite amazing."
!88845899 The other day, Sampras told me that Roger was "lucky," quickly adding that luck always seems to favor the great. As that baseball man Branch Rickey put it, "Luck is the residue of design." And Federer was designed, physically and mentally, to dominate this sport. That he does so with a curious mixture of a champion's requisite arrogance and more than a touch of humility is attractive. The other day he also said, "I just thought that being on the same level with majors as Pete (Sampras), that was kind of important to me, and not really breaking any his records. I almost felt a little bit bad, to be honest."
I have no doubt that Federer was being honest; this is a guy who doesn't even think like a contemporary player in a savage, me-first sport is expected to think these days. Leave the braggadocio and chest-thumping to the Jimmy Connorses of this world - those grunting, sweating, self-aggrandizing icons who need to broadcast their real or imagined superiority from the rooftops. Life is smoother and sweeter in the clouds.
Some of this gets lost in the fabricated Federer image, even though that image taps into some of the man's genuine gravitations. When contemplating Federer, I often think of Gottfried von Cramm, that model sportsman, dashing aristocrat, and adonis (and he, too, had a "beautiful game"). Barbara Hutton, at that time the most glamorous woman on the planet (beat that, Anna W!) was madly in love with Cramm for most of her life. As she was a wealthy heiress and socialite, they made for an appropriate pairing. They were even wed, albeit briefly, because Cramm was gay and that proved too enormous an obstacle even for a formidable beauty with an excellent pedigree and a habit of getting her way.
I often wonder how Cramm would present himself if he were around today. It probably would be in a more discreet manner. That's partly a sign of the times, but it's also because those who grow up in castles tend to underplay their good fortune, which is exactly the opposite of what our boy Roger has been doing lately. The contrast brings into high relief the extent to which Federer, and the company he keeps, accurately represent a striking middle-class interpretation of what those of us not sufficiently lucky to grow up with servants, as Cramm did, might think of as classy, or elegant. It's the same impulse that led Vitas Gerulaitis to run out and buy a Rolls Royce as soon as he could afford one. Federer is too prudent and grounded to do anything like that, which is where this "let's celebrate wonderful and gifted me" theme does him a disservice.
What's worse, and seems destined to keep Federer in this gilded cage, is the way the Federer image undermines some of his most admirable attributes and his ability to win the hearts of so many of those people who are content or constrained to lead rather less glamorous or conspicuously successful lives. For TMF is in many ways a true old-school guy. Isn't it strange that despite his high-flying, urbane ways, the players Federer cites as his heroes and buddies are the Rod Lavers and Pete Samprases - fellas who, if asked to define "catwalk," would probably guess that it was something on a pirate ship?
Andy Roddick made the very telling observation after the Wimbledon final, quoted at greater length in my post, 15, that the thing Federer gets the least credit for is his ability to "dig deep" and to "tough out" matches. We all know that Federer's trademark is a certain ease of accomplishment - a remarkable virtue than not only suggests that he may end up with 20 Grand Slam titles before he's done, but - less fortunately - that winning more or less drops in his lap like a big fat plum falling off a limb.
Federer makes it look easy, for which he is routinely punished. To that end, I'd certainly welcome an image adjustment - nothing as drastic as piratas and sleeveless shirts (Anna probably has already told him that with his arms, he couldn't pull that off), but maybe an eye-patch and a skull-and-crossbones plastered on the chest of his polo. Come to think of it, throw in a wooden peg leg, it probably would help level the playing field.
Federer is old-school in a substantial way, and his image hardly does justice to that, even if his statements and the company he keeps do. Laver touched on a significant element of that in some remarks he made during his own press conference at Wimbledon. He said, "Well, you know, you've got to be in the game and enjoy the sport to be able to do something like this. You're not going to make, you know, the 12 or 13 events if you don't respect the game and enjoy it. It's a thrill for yourself to get out there and play. That's the one thing that Roger has that I think is admirable for tennis."
That's a far more profound observation that it may seem, and another testament to the old-school tennis virtues that somehow don't come through loud and clear. Hail, even Federer's game is old school - a complete repudiation of what most pundits thought of as the new paradigm for an increasingly competitive, global game. That model suggests that the ideal player is a powerful yeoman armed with at least two big weapons, a two-handed backhand, and enough consistency and stamina to blast away for interminable periods of time from the baseline.
Compared to the numerous, successful players who conform to that type, Federer seems almost frail, and certainly lacking in the departments of sheer physicality and power (but does anyone dare question his stamina now?). Yet there he was, serving two aces to every one hit by his opponent in the Wimbledon final - a player (Andy Roddick) who better conforms to the theoretical contemporary model . Federer's greatest weapon is that, like Laver before him, he doesn't really have one or two shots that stand out as such; if you insist on the "two weapons" theory, try these: they're Federer's versatility and his feet. Like so many of the greatest players, Federer wins many points before, rather than after, he strikes the ball.
And how about that forehand he hits, often inside-out, where his right foot kind of kicks back instead of coming around? I can't even conjure up my mental image of how he does that, but my notebook tells me he does, so there you go. Federer's talents as a contortionist are substantial and rendered nearly invisible by his basic smoothness. How about those cross-court backhands he hits, balled up and with a low center of gravity, with his back to the net? Laver was right: to really appreciate his gifts you have to watch just him - not the ball, not his opponent - just him. I tried it and that crafty old Rocket certainly was on to something.
The other day, in the 15 post, I wrote quite a bit about Federer's patience. I'd add that this extraordinary composure (for that's what patience is) is linked to the pure love of the game that Laver cited. And it was one of the main allies Federer had in that harrowing final. At work, Federer is a problem solver with a furrowed brow who takes out what simmering aggressions he has on innocent bystanders, like Hawkeye. But unlike others, he seems to wipe the slate clean before playing each point. That is, every point presents a new problem, to be solved in a new way - a job he entrusts to his marvelous neurological system and the electric dialog it conducts in nano-seconds with his nimble feet and racket arm.
But here we go again, complicating the simple, making the easy seem somehow more labored than it appears. It's an easy trap to fall into, when trying to evaluate Federer. Perhaps we should let TMF's buddy, Sampras, have the last word. When he was corralled by the BBC after the final on Sunday, Pete made a characteristically blunt and simple comment. "He's a stud," Sampras said, and I could imagine the interviewer, perhaps expecting or hoping for something a little more lofty, cringing. Maybe it makes some of you cringe, too. It certainly doesn't conform to the image Federer has been projecting, but perhaps he's saving that eye patch and skull-and-crossbones polo for a time when he's in more desperate need of them.
Some thoughts on Serena tomorrow.