It is 18 months since yours truly advised Roger Federer to chuck in tennis: past-it and embarrassing himself was the thrust of the piece, maybe even tarnishing the legacy of the most accomplished career the sport has ever known.
The Irish Times put it in its “Review of the Year” book, ensuring hard-cover posterity for a paean to puerility which looks even more pathetic now the Australian Open begins the Grand-Slam year again and Federer is all set to win it.
Such wild predictive yo-yoing warns against mortgaging the soul betting on such an outcome, just as it undercuts any pretensions towards knowledge on the subject: being required to fill this space comes with no assumption of expertise.
Some may still believe opinion which comes under an ageing byline must come coated in acuity but I have nothing except a fateful hunch to back up this suspicion about Federer winning a first Slam in three years, that and a fan’s fervent hope.
Nothing weird or puzzling you understand: just that Federer winning in the Aussie sun would brighten up this little corner of the cold winter north. Private prejudices fuel sports fans and even the most private fan recognises that any requirement to know what you’re talking about would run counter to three hundred years of best journalistic practice.
Since the majority of the tennis-watching world appears similarly in thrall to the great Swiss there’s little embarrassment then about parking supposed professional impartiality in anticipation of shrieking early-morning shuffles in front of a Eurosport channel getting its moment in the sun far from ski-jumping curiosity.
Unique
Detachment is impossible when it comes to a figure among the select few to redefine the boundaries of excellence in their particular discipline, and who is damn near unique in the visuals of managing it.
The beauty of Federer’s game has always been an aesthetic joy, an intangible now tangibly paying off in terms of realistic hopes he can better what is already a supreme tally of 17 Grand Slam titles. It would also be a wonderfully straight-forward reassurance about the value of talent.
With so much of modern sport reduced to sacrifice, focus, mindset and any amount of cod-psychological Californian balls devoted to profitably exploiting an idea that lack of success is due to lack of will – the whole “wanting-it bad-enough” schtick – it can sometimes be difficult to parse competition down to one individual simply being better than another.
Federer famously works like a dog at his fitness but his is an overwhelming natural and multidimensional game in contrast to his greatest rivals Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic both of whose natural environment is rooted to the baseline.
By definition a baseline game is attritional, reliant on perseverance and overwhelming physical effort which has taken a toll on Nadal in particular. Federer’s nemesis has spent four months out with wrist problems which are the latest of a list of physical ailments that make some believe the Spaniard is on borrowed time as a serious championship contender.
Writing off Nadal is deadly dangerous though, just as writing off Federer was, but we’re so used to faithfully recorded platitudinous crap we failed to take him at his word in 2013, when he put a form dip down to a bad back and not father time. Clearly, being a father of two sets of twins has made no difference to his ability to make time seem very relative indeed.
He is in Melbourne on the back of winning more matches than anyone in 2014, ranked number two in the world, a maiden Davis Cup victory in his pocket and perfect warm-up tournament victory in Brisbane, which just happened to give him a 1,000th career win.
Methuselahian
But what’s critical is that Federer will be thirty-four this year: that’s Methuselahian in tennis terms.
Ken Rosewall
is the oldest Grand Slam winner in history, at thirty-seven in the 1972 Australian, a bygone athletic age now.
Andre Aggasi
won the Aussie in 2003 aged thirty-two which even at the time seemed fossilised.
Yet Federer persists and endures, maybe not to the dominant extent of his absolute pomp a decade ago, but still a serious contender, still a long way from sentimental curio status, which testifies to an extraordinary individual but also to an extraordinary fundamental talent.
There’s no insult intended in pointing out how it’s all but impossible to imagine great champions like Djokovic or Nadal in the same position at the same age, given the innate physicality of their games, but it is necessary to illustrate the singularity of their older rival.
There’s nothing to stir an audience quite like the idea of a last-hurrah for an old champ except that 2015 won’t be some sentimental long goodbye: Federer is going to be a real player in Paris, Wimbledon and New York too.
The fates though are lined up for Australia. Stefan Edberg celebrates his birthday today, and thirty years after winning his first major in Melbourne, he has been entrusted with presenting the winner with the Norman Brookes Cup in two weeks time. And who does Edberg coach? Seriously, if you wrote the script it's too corny but this stuff happens.
The perishing start of another austere year could do with some warm schmaltz, especially when it’s wrapped around the substance of maybe the greatest sports story of this or any other year.
