The biggest improvement Roger has made is in his serve. Out of the ‘big four’ men (himself, Rafa, Novak and Andy Murray) he has always been the best server, but now this lethal weapon is even more deadly than ever. He has won 447 games (88 per cent) on serve this season, second only to Milos Raonic.
I think his latest coach Paul Annacone has played a role there. Annacone worked with Pete Sampras so he knows what a good serve looks like. Roger has an elegant motion, a very simple technique, and it is very effective even in the wind. When he comes to the grass courts, he collects more free points than any of his main rivals.
Wimbledon will always represent his best chance of adding to that extraordinary tally of 16 major titles. He doesn’t like long rallies where the ball is bouncing high under heavy topspin — Nadal’s strongest suit - so the lower bounce of the grass courts will play into his hands. Grass is a technician’s surface — perfect for a guy who has more all-round technical ability than the other three main contenders. He has the serve, the volley, the groundstrokes and his trump card, the backhand slice, which is at its most effective when the ball is staying a bit low.
That sliced backhand will be Roger’s key tactic, allowing him to keep the baseliners off balance. He can play it a little bit shorter than an ordinary topspin backhand, landing it in no-man’s land and drawing his opponent forward. For Nadal, a left-hander, he would usually look to hit it down the line. For the two right-handers, Murray and Djokovic, he would probably play it crosscourt — although the whole idea is to keep the other guy guessing.
Then, if they take up the challenge and come to the net, he can pass them.
Another Wimbledon title for Roger would put him alongside Sampras’s record of seven victories in this tournament. When you compare Federer and Sampras, there is little to choose between them. They are both great champions, and the sign of that is how well they play in the finals of Grand Slam tournaments.
There are plenty of players who look great in practice and play their best in the first or second rounds of the tournament. But the longer it goes on, the worse they get. Federer and Sampras are the other way round: they don’t look anything special in practice, and they can be vulnerable in the first couple of rounds, but as the tournament goes on it is more and more difficult to compete with them. In the big matches, they don’t just play against their opponents, they are playing for their places in the history books.
Look at Sampras’s record in the Wimbledon final — seven wins from seven attempts. You can’t get any better than that. Federer has won six out of seven, and it took the legendary final of 2009, arguably the best match ever played at this tournament, to break his perfect run.
When it comes to their strengths and weaknesses, Sampras’s serve was the best I’ve seen. His power game was outstanding: he would just blast you off the court.
Federer is different. His serve is very good, as we’ve said, but he’s not up there with the real rocket men. The key to his game is that he doesn’t have an area of weakness. At the baseline, he is as comfortable as anyone, and he has that great reflex volley.
Look at Sampras at Roland Garros, and he always struggled. Whereas Federer hasn’t just won the French Open once, he has reached four other finals. His game is universal.
Who is the greatest? I have a lot of respect for Rod Laver, Bjorn Borg and Jimmy Conners, and then there were a couple of outstanding guys from my era in Sampras and Andre Agassi. You can’t easily compare and say who is the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time). But what you can say is that Roger Federer has been more successful than any other player. And it wouldn’t surprise me if he added another Grand Slam title to his tally in a fortnight’s time.
Date: 20.06.2011, Source: Telegraph UK
