TENNIS/French Open Championships: How quickly Pete Sampras faded into history behind the glare of Roger Federer. How fast the purring and gulping and drooling over Sampras's fluid, athleticism has been replaced by astonishment at a player who has started out and is promising to be every bit as good as, if not better than, the Sampras high-spec industry standard.
The once-unbeatable American is barely out of sight and already the Swiss 23-year-old has stepped in and continued from where the seven-time Wimbledon champion stopped. And where is that?
The common view among commentators, as well as the players he meets every week, is that it is somewhere in the stratosphere, at the borders of perfection.
At last year's Australian Open, three-time Wimbledon champion John McEnroe was moved to remark that Federer was the best tennis player he had ever seen.
McEnroe is a Rod Laver man. Despite being taciturn and occasionally frivolous, McEnroe would not have come to that conclusion lightly.
So enthralled was teen Wimbledon winner Boris Becker, he too said Federer was fast becoming the best of all time.
What the two former champions have said publicly few have disputed, not even the players whose day job is to undermine the pedestal at every turn. Still on the rise and with his best years ahead, the once-fragile but talented right-hander has cast such a shadow over the game that he alone now sets and improves on the standard set by the American.
At 23 years old, he arrives at today's French Open Championship with an aura of invincibility and despite the burgeoning form of Spanish teenager Raphael Nadal, who could offer the most robust challenge over the next two weeks, and Argentina's Guillermo Coria, Federer continues to be recognised as a flawless talent that can only be undone by the player himself.
America's Andy Roddick once said of him, "He has the luxury of being bored sometimes and that's why he loses sometimes."
Roddick, a fierce opponent but unashamed fan of the Swiss, was deliberately making the point that Federer is not only the prince of the game but so much better than the following pack and so far into the comfort zone that, occasionally, his mind can drift. Like the long-distance runner looking back and seeing no one behind him, he realises there's a threat only when, perhaps too late, he sees a shadow creeping up behind.
That was the old Federer, who even in his late teens and early 20s did drift, did lose matches when he was up and in a position to crush his opponents.
Players then found it increasingly difficult to tell which Federer was going to step on court and very often they'd have to play far into the game to find out.
While he blew opponents away with extravagant ease, it became locker-room knowledge that, if you could hang in to disrupt his concentration and his rhythm, the Federer Express could be derailed.
At Roland Garros in 2002 Federer departed following a first-round defeat by the Moroccan Hicham Arazi. Seven days before, in the warm-up clay-court tournament in Hamburg, Federer had demolished the game of two champions, French Open winner Gustavo Kuerten and US Open champion Marat Safin. The Arazi beating came as no surprise. His Achilles' heel was evident.
A year previously at Wimbledon, Federer took the scalp of his predecessor, Sampras, in five sets to end the American's 31-match winning streak. The victory was seen as a pivotal changing of the guard and all the then-20-year-old had to do was silence Henman Hill in the next round to make a reasonable tilt at the title.
Again it was the smaller hurdle that tripped him, and his erratic tendency propelled the English hope into another epic Wimbledon disappointment.
It was not until 2003 that Federer began to explore life deep inside Grand Slam events. Drawing Roddick at that year's Wimbledon semi-final was his first trial of substance well into the second week. A day before the match was scheduled, McEnroe, Becker, Ilie Nastase and Martina Navratilova signed an open letter to the ITF claiming the serve-volley game had died and new rules were needed to bring it back to life.
As if taking the letter as a personal insult, Federer made liars of them all with a breathtaking display of all-round tennis. Serve-volley, backcourt, net play, midcourt, forehand drive volleys from the baseline, backhand winners from outside the tram lines. The Centre Court crowd broke into fits of nervous giggles as he strung together chains of outrageous shots.
Mark Philippoussis then tried to contain him in the final. The Australian went out in straight sets - 7-6, 6-2, 7-6 - in a match that from the first ball was driven in only one direction.
In 2004 Federer then built on his first Grand Slam and began to redraw the boundaries. A Wimbledon final arrived again. This time Roddick, with the Winning Ugly author, Brad Gilbert, at his side, sparred with the favourite for four sets.
Somewhat below his best, Federer, sending out an ominous message, still won the match.
He finished last season with just six losses, and in his final 23 matches against players ranked in the top 10 he was unbeaten.
Federer is respectful and unusually courteous, and even his opponents cannot bring themselves to criticise, even when he casually sets his sights so high. While the remaining three Grand Slam events are being more hungrily sized up, there seems even to be an absence of envy from his opponents in an environment where it thrives.
Federer has won six titles already this year. His main defeat came via the hulking Russian Marat Safin in the semi-finals of the season's first major, January's Australian Open.
Like Sampras before him and McEnroe in the 1980s, though, he has struggled on the clay in Paris. For many it is an aberration, another hurdle Federer has yet to figure out - but figure it out he surely will.
Having recently retained the Hamburg Masters title with a win over one of the current form clay players, Richard Gasquet, he has maintained a high consistency, which has allowed him keep up an enviable win rate of 41 victories from 43 matches. He travels to Paris as top seed.
"Wimbledon and Roland Garros are important goals, but it would be great to win the final three Slams of the season," he said. "If I win in Paris it means I have won every Slam, which is something only a few players can claim."
HIS GAME is adaptable as well as multifaceted. Easily capable of overwhelming many of his opponents, Federer also has the priceless ability to pick them apart and expose their weaknesses.
Handling the bombastic game of Roddick and the weight of serve of Philippoussis with footwork and sleight of hand, he has even reintroduced the slice back into the men's game with bewildering effect.
Federer possesses the nuclear option and can return power when required, but his game is naturally closer to fine needlework than heavy slugging.
"He stays back better than me, his backhand is better and his forehand is just as good," remarked Sampras. "For the next four or five years his competition will be with the record books."
A few others will have strong views on that. Aged just 18, Nadal comes into the tournament burning for what is his first outing in Paris.
Supremely dominant, the Majorcan has won five titles this year on his favourite surface, and comes to Paris on the back of a sensational treble in Monte Carlo, Barcelona and Rome.
In the final of the Italian event, "Rafa" overcame Guillermo Coria in a marathon five-hour-15-minute match that is already being dubbed a classic.
Wisely, he has heeded the advice of his uncle and coach, Toni, and pulled out of the Hamburg event, leaving it to Federer.
Given he has no title so far, Guillermo Coria's clay-court season has been disappointing, but not entirely devoid of merit.
Last year's French Open finalist has reached finals in both Monte Carlo and Rome, where only the stunning form of Nadal denied him his first trophy. of the campaign.
The marginal failures may have taken their toll on his confidence, but his game is still impressive and, thanks to his increased physical strength, he is perhaps even better-equipped than last year.
Federer's win in Hamburg, meanwhile, should reaffirm his status, as apart from that he had only competed on clay in Monte Carlo, where he lost out in the quarter-finals to Gasquet.
It has been a thin harvest. But after missing Rome because of a foot injury, Federer has responded with predictably vigour.
The real fear of the other players is not his form going into the French Open but the heights he can reach, and only he controls that.
Roger Federer
Right-handed
Age: 23
Height: 186 cm (6ft 1in)
Weight: 84 kg (13st 3lb)
Nationality: Swiss
Career Grand Slams: 2003: Wimbledon. 2004: US Open, Wimbledon, Australian Open.
2005 streak: Winner - Doha, Kooyoung, Rotterdam, Indian Wells, Miami, Hamburg. Semi-finalist - Australian Open. Quarter-finalist - Monte Carlo.
Overall 2005: Won 57 Lost 2.
