Style with substance, grace with athleticism, Roger Federer had it all

There is a photograph on the July/August 2018 cover of the British edition of Esquire magazine. Wimbledon naturally.

The picture captures Roger Federer at the end of his backhand having sent the ball down the court. His right toe is the only part of his body touching planet Earth.

The left leg is horizontal and backwards facing with his heel almost waist high. His outstretched left arm is also sweeping back and up towards where the sharp black shadow from the low lying Centre Court roof traverses the crowd and darkens the upper tiers.

The composition captures a body in competition at its extremities, but with little or no sense it is stressed. It suggests more than just hitting a tennis ball, a piece of performative art, that Federer is consciously striking a pose, configuring his body into a study. But he is not.

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Occupied by nothing but the ball, his eyes set, he appears untroubled and entirely engaged without any hint of effort. Exquisitely balanced, if the mood is anything, it is serene and insouciant, breezily occupying a space that he owned for almost two decades.

The photograph is captioned. “He’s the greatest of all time. But Roger Federer is more important than that.”

[ Roger Federer to bring curtain down on stellar tennis career at 41 ]

To see Federer play was not just a visual experience but to undergo a transformation of sorts. Permitting yourself to fall under his spell, it was to be drawn into a world of fluent movement and timing.

The uncomplicated joy of it relied not just on his balletic shapes and silent speed across the court but tenacity and graft. He could be desperate and mean in matches and always relentless.

He would use his position, his heap of Grand Slams and his grass court superiority to intimidate opponents and umpires. He made it clear that they were dealing with a serious player of import with some kind of hell to pay if it went sour.

Federer was never less than ruthless, his respect for other players never hindering an easy sweep towards a drubbing. He hit many aces but he never pounded. He made many execrable errors but even with those he found a way of pleasing the eye.

A backhand off the rim spinning wildly up in the air and into a Royal Box with Pierce Brosnan, Elton John and Alex Ferguson would not warrant as much as a glance.

He would momentarily hold the pose, transfixed by the impossibility of how he missed the shot, walk across the court ignoring the 15,000 fans or what celebrity had caught the ball and before starting another point replace the flop of hair over his headband into its rightful place. Then send down an ace.

He became quite the opposite of Federer the bratty teenager, the whiny racket chucker, who like Bjorn Borg, saw through bouts of histrionics to emerge as one of the most self-possessed, unflappable champions to have played.

He was perfection, or, at least he represented perfection or came closer than any other player to look like perfection, yet he could break down in tears or be smug when he won and conceited when he lost. He made the tennis look like nothing difficult. But winning always meant everything.

Rafa Nadal with 22, Novak Djokovic with 21 and Federer with 20 Grand Slams make a nonsense of the perfection piece. It was an image, a beautiful, credible masquerade.

Even his fashion crash at Wimbledon 2009 could not dissuade the Federer devoted. Looking like he had fallen from the cover of The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper album, he wore a military inspired uniform with collar turned up and a white army style jacket over a gold lamé accented waistcoat. His trainers had a gold Nike swoosh and he carried a large gold-covered man bag.

But the magic dust he sprinkled, especially at Wimbledon, where he won a record eight times, seduced many into believing he was the best.

Djokovic was the guy doing the splits outside the tramlines to hit a return. Nadal was the gritted teeth warrior, guns popping as he crushed a backhand and Federer was the follow through.

In a golden period from 2005 to 2010 he reached the finals in 18 out of 19 consecutive grand slams, winning 12 titles.

Now 41-years-old, his final Grand Slam was at the 2018 Australian Open, when, aged 36, he became the second-oldest man to win a Major singles title since 1968, when the Open era began.

But after three knee surgeries, the announcement to play his last match in the Rod Laver Cup, where he will represent Team Europe, was unsurprising. Characteristically, it arrived after the noise from the recent US Open had died down.

Always part ambassador for the game Federer waited to allow the 19-year-old Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz, the youngest world number one since ranking began in 1973, to have the moment alone to savour his first Major title.

Sometimes goofy and square, Federer glided around the world with his wife Mirka and two sets of twins. In 2016 he tore his meniscus running a bath for them, prompting the New York Times to write that we had to assume he was probably running “a gorgeous bath, probably the greatest bath of all time”.

Style with substance, grace with athleticism, none on their own would have made him the exquisite player he became. Luckily for tennis he possessed them all.