This week, TENNIS.com online editor Kamakshi Tandon and I are discussing "Quest for Perfection: The Roger Federer Story," by René Stauffer.
Hi Kamakshi,
I’m about halfway through the book at this point, and I feel like its most—only?—revealing moments come at the very beginning, right in the introduction.
There Stauffer accidentally catches his first glimpse of a 15-year-old Roger Federer on a backcourt at a junior event in Zurich.
There were three or four spectators, a referee and no ball boys. The players fetched the balls themselves. However I was instantly fascinated by Federer’s elegant style. It appeared to me that an extraordinary talent was coming of age in front of me. He effortlessly put spins on the ball. His strokes were harmonious and technically brilliant.
Federer’s athletic maturity stood in stark contrast to his behavior. He was a hothead; his temper exploded even from the smallest mistakes. On several occasions, he threw his racquet across the court in anger and disgust. “Duubel!” or “Idiot!” he exclaimed when one of his balls narrowly missed the line.
He didn’t seem to notice what was going on around him. It was only him, the ball, the racquet—and his fuming temper. Nothing else.
After the match, Stauffer talks to Federer:
“I hardly forgive myself for any mistakes although they’re normal,” Federer said. “One should be able to play a perfect game.”
Playing a perfect game—that’s what motivated him. He didn’t want to dominate his opponent. He wanted to dominate the ball that he both loved and hated.
Stauffer goes on to say that this attitude would help Federer on the tour because he didn’t see his fellow pros as rivals or tournaments as kill-or-be-killed affairs. Other pros were more like colleagues, all doing the same thing, all just striving to play their best tennis.
That’s a pretty good explanation for something I’ve always noticed about Federer: He rarely gets visibly nervous and rarely lets the pressure of a big moment hinder his shot-making—I can’t remember a time when he seemed tentative. It must be the fact that Federer doesn’t personalize his matches; he’s not as worried about losing to a particular player as he is about not meeting his own standards, and that removes an entire level of nerves that afflict most tennis players. Even against Nadal, who obviously forces Federer to play at less than his best, I don’t get the feeling Rog is choking—flummoxed, not confident, a little intimidated, yes, but nervous to the point where he can’t play his game, I don’t think so. And against everyone else, he’s a tremendous front-runner who doesn’t appear to be affected by the moment.
In this way, Federer reminds me of another perfectionist champion, John McEnroe, whose early biography was called A Rage for Perfection. McEnroe was also more concerned with his own play, and the battle within himself, than the guy across the net. Federer even sounds like he was a Jr. Mac as a kid—he just learned to hide the rage somewhere along the line.
My question to you, Kamakshi: Does this book make Federer sound like an interesting person? In the part I’ve read, which covers his childhood, he’s portrayed as a kind of wild, goofy athletic animal—as Stauffer says, in a rather unfortunate turn of phrase, “Young Roger was fascinated by balls at a very young age”—someone who sleeps through school, plays video games all night, and drives his mother and sister crazy with his willfulness and wacky antics. I’d say he was a typical teenager, except that he seemed to have no outside interests whatsoever (fashion included). All he had was an unshakeable sense that he was something very special on a tennis court.
Steve