Wimbledon 2017: Roger Federer in a class of his own as a sporting great

Ali, Pele and Bradman ... Roger Federer had now joined them for reasons of pure sporting mastery.

Roger Federer celebrates victory after against Marin Cilic. Picture: Getty

An anticlimatic Wimbledon final against a valiant Marin Cilic should not obscure the scale of the achievement of Roger Federer, a man who had been written off as little as 12 months ago, who had endured a four-and-a-half-year grand-slam drought, who had taken off six months last season as he came to terms with an injury to a knee.

A man whose artistic interpretation of the game seemed to have become increasingly obsolete in an era characterised by power, muscularity and stamina. A man who has moved into the second half of the fourth decade of life, a time when many players are wondering how they will cope with the ironies of retirement. A man whose rivals are, we should never forget, among the finest tennis players to have drawn breath.

Yet, as Andy Murray and, in particular, Novak Djokovic have faltered, and despite the renaissance of Rafael Nadal, Federer has become, unexpectedly, impossibly, the dominant force in the game once more.

His imperious run at Wimbledon, where he became the first man to capture the title without dropping a set since Bjorn Borg in 1976, following a stunning victory at the Australian Open in January, testifies to a player of ineffable ability but also of mental toughness perhaps unequalled in the modern sporting age.

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Cilic was unfortunate yesterday to arrive on Centre Court with blisters that were bandaged and for which he required a medical time-out, where he wept into his towel, partly, one imagines, at the injustice of playing in one of the most important matches of his life with a physical impediment. But it would be wrong to suppose that this was a decisive factor in a contest in which there was such a conspicuous gulf in ability.

The Croat is a fine player with a devastating serve that took him to the US Open title in 2014, but up against an athlete with such myriad qualities as the Swiss, a player revelling in the reignition of his genius in these twilight years, he was never likely to endanger a victory that takes Federer to 19 grand-slam titles, four more than his nearest rival in tennis (Nadal), and one clear of Jack Nicklaus, that titan of longevity and nerve, whose feats in golf will not, one imagines, be equalled for decades.

Wimbledon champion Switzerland's Roger Federer and his wife Mirka arrive at the Wimbledon Champions Dinner. Picture: AP

Yet, despite the one-sidedness of the match, there were moments that symbolised the synthesis of imagination, ruthlessness and artistry unique to Federer, and which provoked a species of gasps quite unlike any other I have heard at a sporting venue.

Perhaps the most peerless vignette occurred in the seventh game of the first set, when Cilic was still in the chase. It was a drop shot, played from behind the baseline, the racket taken back as though he was planning to play an ordinary backhand slice. But at the point of execution, the ball paused on his strings, the laws of nature momentarily suspended, before describing a high, fading arc, dropping inches over the net, and then dying. Cilic’s jaw dropped, as much at the audacity of Federer’s imagination as the majesty of its execution.

Federer plays tennis in a different language. It is a language that requires no obvious translation, for it is understood regardless of cultural background, with Federer admired as much in Asia and South America as in Europe and the United States.

Switzerland's Roger Federer with his Ro8er t-Shirt. Picture: AFP

And, yet, when you watch him, you are, indeed, struck by the sense that his shots emerge from a conception of the game philosophically different to any who has played before, a game with a vocabulary and grammar all of its own.

The key moment in the match was Federer’s break in the fifth game of the first set, Cilic missing with a backhand, perhaps labouring under the premonition that any gap between the two men could quickly become a chasm.

The crowd roared at that moment, aware that the Swiss had given himself a key advantage, revelling in the prospect of witnessing history.

From that, Federer was rarely under threat, breaking multiple times in the second set, and then again in the third, as the final became infused with a sense of inevitability, not least because of the injury to Cilic, who demonstrated courage to continue to the end.

It almost goes without saying that this was, too, a tactical masterclass from Federer. His deployment of the backhand slice, particularly in the second set, was sublime, aware of the flatness of the Cilic backhand, forcing him to bend his knees, to play from below the height of the net.

The Federer serve was also emphatic, finding aces whenever in trouble, boldly seeking the lines with his second serve.

He dropped only four service games in the entire competition, indicating the extent to which this crucial shot has been refashioned and adapted in his relentless pursuit of new increments.

And isn’t this another deep and beautiful lesson that we have been taught by Federer? The Swiss had the courage to alter, subtly but emphatically, his game.

The anguish of successive defeats by Nadal, by Djokovic, by Murray, and by other pretenders, was met not with resentment, still less capitulation, but with resolve. He learnt to flatten his backhand, the better to cope with the leaping forehand of Nadal. His slice is played with more venom. His movement is, remarkably, even more fluent, a ballet dancer with a racket and bandana.

Federer’s place in the pantheon is assured, but, with this latest victory, I am tempted to say that he is carving out a unique niche in sporting history. Since the re-emergence of codified games in the 19th century, after a long period of abeyance after the Ancient Greeks, we have witnessed a succession of athletes, such as Muhammad Ali, Pele and Donald Bradman, who have, in their different ways, influenced wider consciousness. They transcended their sports, partly due to their prowess, but also because their performances became bound up with issues of culture and class.

Federer had joined them, not because of any political or racial symbolism, but for reasons of pure sporting mastery. He wept after his triumph, acknowledging the inspiration of his family, and describing his sense of astonishment at this latest accomplishment.

One dearly hopes that he will continue for a few more years, articulating the language of tennis with his distinctive grammar, inspiring a new generation of fans, and now seeking out a scarcely credible 20th major title.

He is a truly unique sportsman, a champion for the ages.

The Times