The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Roland Garros

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 20, 2005

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Sport - Tennis

Roland Garros — a graveyard of heroes

Rohit Brijnath

Federer is seen as the player of the greatest tennis but not yet its greatest player, writes Rohit Brijnath

Two hundred years hence when archaeologists search for clues to the broken dreams of old tennis heroes they will commence by sifting the dust at the ancient arena of Roland Garros.

Deep in the Paris clay washed by tears, amidst the small shards of shattered rackets, the earth will tell poignant stories. Of John McEnroe, succumbing when just a volley away from beating Ivan Lendl in the 1984 final; of Pete Sampras' five-set gallantry in 1996 over Sergie Bruguera and Jim Courier, both French champions, but finding his body could go no further.

Of how Stefan Edberg's sinewy splendour, and Jimmy Connors's grimacing desire, and Boris Becker's pounding ferocity, would all come to die here. Most of these men would win the other three slams, but clay would claim them and alter history. If McEnroe had conquered France he would be one of the five greatest ever; if Sampras had, Rod Laver would concede his throne.

Greatest player?

So then, 200 years from now, what will these archaeologists find about Roger Federer? The bones of Swiss defeat or the faint footprints of famous victory?

Federer is already seen as the player of the greatest tennis we have seen, but not yet its greatest player. That designation appears imminent, too, but it will be undisputed if he wins the French to become the sixth player after Don Budge, Fred Perry, Laver, Roy Emerson, and Andre Agassi to succeed at all four Slams.

Both Sampras, the defeated, and Thomas Muster, the (1995) victor, dubbed the French the `toughest' Slam to win, but then Federer is tennis' toughest player. He is also its most beautiful and when he performs you half expect critics from a paper's art, not sports, section to be in attendance. We know, too, he can paint on any canvas for last summer he produced consecutive victories at Wimbledon (grass), Gstaad (clay) and Toronto (hard court).

But if on most surfaces his game is so astonishingly dominant that allowing him one serve seems the only fair handicap, there remains the suspicion that clay faintly erodes his menace. His career winning percentage is 77.6 on hard court, 78.4 on grass but 68.8 on clay. Everywhere else he is favourite, at the French it is Rafael Nadal; everywhere else men look anxiously to see if they are his chosen lunch, at the French even he might secretly wish for a friendly draw.

No theory sits easily with Federer and clay. One might say that at 80 per cent efficiency, he can withstand most challenges on grass, but on his off days, like against Gustavo Kuerten at the French last year, may have more fatal implications. That said, he appeared less fluent in Hamburg on clay last week, but still won without dropping a set. This man does not merely own tennis' finest `A' game, but also its most capable `B' game.

The leveller

Perhaps the leveller is not merely surface, but opponent. Unlike grass, clay is rife with specialists; unlike hard court where the Swiss has no immediate peer, on clay the distance between him and the pack of Coria, Nadal, Gasquet closes minutely.

His outrageous talent suggests Federer must win the French one day, but sport routinely makes a mockery of such assumptions. Nevertheless, it makes this Open even more enchanting, for there is something pleasing to the fact that even tennis' grand riddler is confronted by a puzzle he is yet to solve. It is almost an affront to his genius and it could spur him. So, too, could his belief that he is too finely gifted to become just another headstone in this graveyard of heroes.

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