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Tuesday, Sep 14, 2004

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FEDERER THE SORCERER

ONCE EVERY GENERATION, a popular sport gets to witness the flowering of a champion whose exploits not only cause history to be re-written but, more significantly, turn sport into super-sport. On Sunday, as Roger Federer became the first man since Mats Wilander in 1988 to win three Grand Slam tennis titles in a calendar year, beating the Australian Lleyton Hewitt rather handily in the U.S. Open final in New York, those lucky enough to witness the contest might have left the National Tennis Center drenched in the sort of fulfilment more readily associated with operatic masterpieces than with ball games. As the outrageously gifted Swiss champion waltzed through the first set in only 18 minutes before breaking down Hewitt's mid-match resistance and running away with the third set and the match, the oohs and aahs of a stadium gave way to a stunned silence that audiences reserve for truly great performances. As the greatest fighter in contemporary tennis — Hewitt — surrendered a second 6-0 set and the match, fans may have had the true measure of his conqueror's greatness. The bewitching sorcery of Federer's tennis may be breathtaking to watch but, as his Australian opponent found out, it is withering to face.

Few male champions in the modern era have been able to dominate the game as convincingly as Federer has done since winning the first of his four Grand Slam titles at Wimbledon in July 2003. For long a Prince who shirked his royal duties and chose to be oblivious to his obvious destiny, the genial Swiss finally seized his chance 14 months ago when he displayed the authority of a mighty Sovereign to brush aside the challenge of another Australian, Mark Philippoussis. Since then Federer has lost only two Grand Slam matches — at the U.S. Open last year and at the French Open earlier this year — while playing a brand of tennis that many of his top rivals don't even dare dream of. Inarguably the most gifted player of his generation, Federer is living proof that grace and athleticism need not be mutually exclusive in sport. In him reside both athletic power and a rare aesthetic sensibility and it is a sporting marriage that redefines the possible and the impossible on a tennis court. Still only 23, Federer, in his own words, has a long way to go and it may be too early to seek to identify his place in the history of the game. "Let's hope he has the same drive as Sampras had for so long," said the 83-year-old American great Jack Kramer on Sunday night. If Federer does indeed possess the same drive as the most successful male champion in Grand Slam history — Sampras won a record 14 titles — then the sky is the limit for the Swiss hero.

Federer's sublime master-class may have been a perfect climax to the U.S. Open fortnight but it could not overshadow another historic event played out on Saturday. For the second time in three successive Grand Slam finals, two Russian women fought for the coveted trophy. The true significance of Svetlana Kuznetsova's triumph, which helped complete a hat-trick following the victories of Anastasia Myskina in the French Open and Maria Sharapova at Wimbledon, can be gauged from the fact that no Russian woman had ever won a Grand Slam singles title before Myskina's breakthrough success in Paris last June. If these three women are the pioneers of a glorious Russian revolution sweeping the sport, then there are a few others waiting in the wings. The country now has six players among the women's top 15. Those like Elena Dementieva, twice runner-up in Grand Slam tournaments this year, Nadia Petrova and Vera Zvonareva would also fancy their chances down the road at a time when the women's game is more open than it has been in a long, long time.

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