A success to savour

Tennis : His career rejuvenated by the Australian Open triumph, Roger Federer is in no mood to leave the scene

With his 18th and most unexpected Grand Slam singles title in hand, it was not unreasonable to wonder if Roger Federer might steal a move from his friend and one-time tennis role model Pete Sampras and call it a career on the highest possible note.

Federer told me that the thought did briefly flit through his brain.
“I guess in a faraway place it did cross my mind: How could I ever top this?” he said by telephone from Prague. “But then again, the joy was so big, and I kept on watching the reaction of my team when I won the match point in Australia and how they were jumping for joy. Unbelievable. So much fun. I feel like I want to go through it again.”

Sampras never played another tour-level match after winning his 14th and final major singles title at age 31 at the 2002 US Open, formalising his retirement less than a year later. But Federer has other plans, and after winning the Australian Open on January 29 by defeating his tennis yang Rafael Nadal in a transcendent five-set final, he said that he has every intention of playing on.

That is why he was in Prague exchanging half-earnest shots with the Czech star Tomas Berdych in the middle of winter on the deck of a boat on the Vltava River. The idea was to promote the first edition of the Laver Cup, the team tennis competition between Europe and an International squad that will be staged in Prague in September and in which Federer wants to play a major role after helping to create the event.

Federer said the upper leg injury that troubled him throughout much of the Australian Open — requiring treatment on and off the court — remains a concern. “I’m still not back in practice at 100 percent,” he said, adding, “I have to be careful.”

That has been the rare downbeat note in his particularly upbeat month as he has celebrated his first major singles title in nearly five years.

“This one definitely has had maybe the longest effect of any of the Grand Slam wins in my career,” he said. “I’m so happy because I didn’t have to play in the following weeks. It’s really allowed me to reflect and enjoy. In the past in 2003, when I won Wimbledon for the first time, I was in Gstaad the next day practicing and stuff. It’s very different this time. I’m still riding the wave, still feeling like I’m on cloud nine.”

He gained some more altitude last week during his vacation in Switzerland, taking a day trip high into the mountains near his holiday home in Lenzerheide with his replica copy of the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup, the trophy awarded to the Australian Open men’s singles champion.

“I call it Norman,” he said of the trophy. “I’ve had dinner with Norman, spent a lot of time with Norman. I know it’s just a replica, but that’s all right.”

In 2003, when the Swiss billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli won the America’s Cup sailing competition for Switzerland (while using a crew full of hired New Zealanders in New Zealand), Bertarelli vowed to celebrate by taking the America’s Cup to the top of the Matterhorn.

“That’s where I got my idea to take Norman into the mountains,” Federer said. “I don’t know if Ernesto ever did it, but I thought it was such a cool idea. To come from a faraway place like New Zealand or Australia and bring the trophy all the way back to the most important part of your homeland.”

There would be no Matterhorn visit in this case, but Federer did take a series of ski lifts and one snowmobile ride to a mountaintop chalet where he and his wife, Mirka, and their friends had fondue and Federer sneaked outside into the snow with Norman for a series of Alpine group photos (Federer and Norman being the group). “We tried a few different things up there, with the racquet and a ball and Norman,” Federer said, laughing. “I just thought it was super fun. I know it was super cheesy, but the fans just love it.”

Federer is still not skiing himself, not wanting to risk an injury that could derail his tennis career. “I don’t dare do it,” he said. “I take the kids and watch them and help them. I’ve got to be patient.”

Skiing presumably will be one reward when his playing career finally ends. In light of his commitments and priorities and current form, it is difficult to see that happening until the end of 2017 at the earliest. But the question Federer asked himself however briefly — how can I ever top this? — definitely hangs in the air.

A great number of things had to fall his way in Melbourne for him to win No 18, including the early defeats of Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray and his own five-set victories over Kei Nishikori, Stan Wawrinka and Nadal. There was also the fact that Federer felt unusually fresh in his legs and his head after six months away from tournament tennis — a forced break as he recovered from recurring left knee problems. Does he feel now that this victory was meant to be?

“Honestly, I felt the French Open was more meant to be,” he said referring to his first and still-only French Open title in 2009. “I had to work for this one.”
When Federer won in Paris, Nadal, who was the overwhelming favourite to win any French Open at that stage, stunningly lost in the fourth round to Robin Soderling.

“There were tough matches with DelPo and Haas of course,” Federer said, referring to his five-set French Open victories over Juan Martin del Potro and Tommy Haas in 2009. “But this one didn’t feel like it was meant to be in that same way. I felt I was too fresh in the mind, wanted it too badly in the end, felt too good in the end about everything and riding that wave of the comeback with nothing to lose. I felt it was more one of those things. It was such a surprise. Meant to be doesn’t come with nothing to lose. This one was different than any other one I’ve ever experienced.”

Though the chances are all too good that Melbourne will remain a singular experience, he will very soon be back on the baseline in Dubai or elsewhere, ripping one-handed backhands against younger men with so much more left to prove.

“The goal, when I took my break of six months, was doing this for the next couple years, not just for one tournament,” Federer said. “I understand people who say, ‘Oh, this would be a perfect moment to go.’ But I feel like I’ve put in so much work, and I love it so much, and I still have so much in the tank.”