Chris Lewis

Roger Federer is in full preparation in this off season of continuing his assault on the tennis history books. He is one major singles title shy of equaling the all-time men’s record of 14 major singles title set by Pete Sampras from 1990 to 2002. The Australian Open, which begins January 19, 2009 in Melbourne, is Federer’s next target as he looks to win his fourth title “Down Under.” The following excerpt from the book THE ROGER FEDERER STORY, QUEST FOR PERFECTION, details Roger’s 2005 Australian campaign and how his coaching relationship at the time with Tony Roche began. For more information on THE ROGER FEDERE STORY, QUEST FOR PERFECTION, written by Rene Stauffer, please go to www.rogerfedererbook.com. (It makes for a great holiday gift for the tennis fan!)
Because of his success in the 2004 season, Roger Federer found himself in an interesting dilemma with regard to his coaching situation. He was without a coach for the entire year, making him the exception on the professional tour, yet he completed one of the greatest individual years in the history of the sport. Despite his success, he still sought new impulses. He still felt he had an even greater untapped potential and he wanted to continue to improve- especially his serve, his backhand and his net game. He knew that if he rested on his laurels and stayed stagnant, his game would regress.
However, he also knew the dangers that taking on a new coach would have not only for him, but for the coach as well. “If a player loses a few times, then they’ll say that it was the coach’s fault,” Federer said in Bangkok. “As long as I don’t have a coach, I don’t think too much, and as long as I play well, I also don’t have to change anything. That is the case right now, but I am also aware that there are going to be times when things won’t run as smoothly. Then it would be better to have a coach.”
Since the beginning of the 2004 season, rumors swirled that Federer was pursuing Darren Cahill as his coach. Cahill, who was actually a childhood school friend of Roger’s deceased coach Peter Carter, was a standout Australian player who reached the semifinals at the 1988 US Open and was the former coach of Lleyton Hewitt. At the time, he was working with Andre Agassi and Federer was quick to deny the rumor at every opportunity.
Truth be told, Federer had his eye cast on another prominent Australian of an older generation-Tony Roche. The unflappable man with the sun and wind-burned complexion was born in 1945 in Wagga Wagga-a city located between Melbourne and Sydney whose meaning is “the city of the many crows.” He was one of the greats in tennis history, but won only one Grand Slam tournament title in singles, mainly due to the fact that the competition of his era consisted of legends such as Rod Laver, Roy Emerson, Ken Rosewall and John Newcombe.
In his prime, the left-hander was an imposing figure with a treacherous serve and brilliant net game that helped him secure 13 Grand Slam men’s doubles titles and guided him to four Davis Cup titles representing Australia.
In singles, he reached six Grand Slam tournament finals, including the Wimbledon final in 1968 and the US Open final in 1969 and 1970. His only Grand Slam triumph in singles came in 1966 on the slow clay courts at Roland Garros, where aggressive players like Roche are usually at a disadvantage.
Roche is a gentleman and when asked about his victory in Paris, he immediately emphasized that he was only able to win the tournament thanks to the fairness of his final-round opponent, a Hungarian named Istvan Gulyas. “I injured my ankle and, without a doubt, would not have been able to play in the final if he had not allowed me to have an extra day off to rest,”
Roche said. “It was an incredible gesture of sportsmanship.”
Roche is considered to be one of the world’s premier tennis tacticians. He is a polite, quiet, extremely modest and very discreet. Even Australian journalists who meticulously cover the sport admit that there’s a certain mystery to Roche. “He prefers to stay in the background when working with players,” said Australian radio reporter Craig Gabriel. Even during his glamour years as a player, Roche preferred ceding the limelight to Newcombe, his long-time doubles partner. Roche won 12 of his 13 Grand Slam doubles titles with “Newk”-five at Wimbledon, four in Melbourne, two in Paris, and one in New York. Newk and “Rochey”-as he is referred to in Australian circles-led the Australian Davis Cup team as captain and coach respectively from 1994 to 2000.
But Roche didn’t always manage to keep out of the headlines. At 29, following a series of unsuccessful treatments for serious shoulder and elbow problems, he consulted a miracle healer in the Philippines, who used acupuncture to treat his ailments and allow him the opportunity to achieve further accolades on the tennis court. Three years later in 1977, Roche starred in the Davis Cup Final when he upset Adriano Panatta of Italy to help Australia win the Davis Cup title. The win over Panatta, next to his French Open triumph 11 years earlier, was his most celebrated victory in singles in his career.
As a mentor, “Coach Roche” led New Zealander Chris Lewis to his unexpected run to the Wimbledon final in 1983. In 1985, he teamed with Ivan Lendl and steered the Czech to seven of his eight Grand Slam singles titles, but unfortunately, not the elusive Wimbledon title that Lendl so desperately desired. After Lendl’s retirement, Roche worked with fellow Australian Patrick Rafter, who won the US Open twice and became the No. 1 player in the world briefly in 1999. After the death of his coach Tim Gullikson in 1996, Pete Sampras even offered Roche a job as his personal coach, but Roche preferred to stay with Rafter. After Rafter’s retirement, he worked primarily in Australia, working in women’s tennis with the Australian Fed Cup team and also promoting up-and-coming Australian junior talents.
Both Lendl and Rafter still rave when asked about Roche and his influence on their tennis careers and their lives. When once asked who the most important person was in his career, Rafter answered without hesitation, “Rochey is my hero above all as a human being and not just as a tennis coach.”
In October of 2004, Roche first trained with Federer in Dubai on a trial basis, but the Aussie legend didn’t think the timing was right for him to start working with the No. 1 player in the world. He was approaching his 60th birthday and no longer wanted the excessive global travel that a full-time career in tennis demanded. Nonetheless, he offered to help Federer prepare for the new season. Just before Christmas in 2004, Federer traveled to Australia to train with Roche where he lived in Turramurra, a suburb of Sydney. He assumed this was going to be their last training session together and was saddened at the prospect of not having the full opportunity to work with the man he felt was best suited to help him. “Roche would have been a person who could have improved my game,” he said at the time.
However, the personal chemistry between Federer and Roche clicked during the 10-day training camp. Despite the 36-year age difference, Federer and Roche got along fabulously. Federer made one last attempt-he told Roche he would be happy no matter how much or how little time Roche could dedicate to him as coach, he would take advantage of every opportunity. The Australian was impressed by Federer’s persistence and was flattered that Federer traveled so far to Australia-and sacrificed celebrating the Christmas holidays at home-just to train with him. Roche relented. They shook hands on the deal without any sort of formal contract. The intention was that they would work together for about 10 weeks during the 2005 season.
After Christmas, Federer flew from Sydney to Doha, Qatar in the Middle East where he made his 2005 tournament debut at the Qatar Open. Federer chose the tournament as the stage for publicly announcing his agreement with Roche. “I’m glad that Tony changed his mind,” he said. “I now have somebody who I can fall back on if necessary. Roche was a great serve, volley and return player in his day. He won’t change my basic game but he will try to help me in certain areas. We also mutually respect and appreciate one another too which is great.”
“If I were ten years younger, I would have jumped at the opportunity,” Roche explained later on the eve of the Australian Open. “The fact that Roger made the sacrifice to come to me in Australia before Christmas demonstrated the great respect he has for me. That convinced me.” For Roche, respect and trust were the most important elements for a partnership. As with Federer, Roche’s previous deals with Lendl and Rafter were also sealed with simply a handshake.
Roche had a vision of how Federer could get stronger and become more efficient-improving his volleys and playing more at the net. By coming to the net more often, Federer could end points quicker and save energy. “He’s a good athlete who can volley well and he has good reflexes,” Roche said.
“He could be even better. He should take more advantage of this. He already dominates from the baseline. I don’t see any reason why he shouldn’t be as dominant at the net.”
The fact that Federer approached Roche demonstrated the great respect he has for tennis history. Federer knew that there was very little from a tactical and technical standpoint that was a mystery to Roche and that the Aussie had over 40 years of global experience in the sport. Like John McEnroe, Federer was fascinated by the rich history of his sport and held former champions in high regard. Who would be a better person to tell him about the strengths of Laver, Emerson, Borg, Lendl or Rafter than Roche, who had intimate knowledge of the minds and talents of the all-time greats.
Roche constantly pointed out the similarities between Federer and Laver as a person and as a player. Federer, like Laver, is an easy-going, relaxed person who likes to laugh and doesn’t seem to be easily rattled. This attitude, he said, is an important base for success. The two agreed to travel together during the eight-week stretch between Hamburg in May and Wimbledon, but as the year developed, there would be down times where the two would hardly communicate with each other for several weeks. It was a strange player-coach relationship, but mutually agreeable.
As the 2005 season commenced, the relationship began auspiciously. Federer opened the 2005 season in Doha, losing just 23 games in five matches to win his fourth tournament in a row. To add to Federer’s domination of the field was the fact that for the first time in his career, he won a title without having his serve broken. “I thought a lot about this stat and concentrated on not losing a service game,” he said after dominating Croatian Ivan Ljubicic 6-3, 6-1 in the final.
Federer immediately flew back to Australia, where he also won the Kooyong Classic, an exhibition tournament featuring some of the bigger names in tennis held at the Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club, a previous site of the Australian Open. There was no question that the Australian Open favorite was Federer, who entered the event with a 21-match winning streak stretched over a five-month period. An Australian sports bookie reduced the odds of Federer winning to 1-8. Even Pete Sampras had not reached such odds for a Grand Slam tournament during his greatest days on the circuit. Approximately two thirds of the gambling public placed bets on the man from Switzerland to win the 2005 Australian Open.
En route to the semifinals, Federer did not lose a set, including a dominating 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 win over four-time Australian Open Andre Agassi in the quarterfinals. Marat Safin-and his coach Peter Lundgren-awaited Federer in the semifinals. Just like their second-set tie-break in Houston, their semifinal match became an epic and turned into the match of the year. Federer led two sets to one and by 5-2 in the fourth-set tie-break and had Safin in a virtual stranglehold. Federer held a match point at 6-5 and rushed the net, only to see Safin counter with a superb lob over his head. In his confident manner, Federer attempted an aggressive and risky between-the-legs retrieval of the lob, only to have his trick shot land in the net. Two points later, Safin won the fourth-set tie-break to even the match at two sets apiece. Before the start of the fifth set, Federer’s foot was worked on by the medical staff, but the conclusion of the match was still a long way from being determined. Unlike the US Open, where a tie-break is played in the fifth set, the Australian Open, as well as the other two Grand Slam tournaments, play out a deciding set until one player wins by two games. Federer and Safin duked it out in a fifth set for another 80 minutes-almost as long as a full soccer game-before the winner was determined. After four hours and 28 minutes, the result was a bitter pill for Federer as Safin finally broke through on his seventh match point to register the shocking and unexpected 5-7, 6-4, 5-7, 7-6 (6), 9-7 upset victory.
In the wee hours of the morning, after Australian fans sang “Happy Birthday” to Safin who was minutes into his 25th birthday, Federer faced the fact that many of his winning streaks ended. His 26-match winning streak-his personal best-ended as well as his 24-match win streak against top 10 players. For the first time since Madrid in 2003, he lost a tournament after reaching the semifinals. His attempt to become the first player since Pete Sampras in 1993/1994 to win three consecutive Grand Slam tournaments also came up short.
Nonetheless, Federer seemed composed when he showed up at 1:30 in the morning for his post-match press conference. “I can only blame myself,” he said. “I gave it my best. It was a good fight between two good men and in the end, the best man won.” He did not mention that he entered the match with a painful left foot that became worse as the match progressed. In trying to favor the foot, he put extra stress on his back. In the fourth set, when he could have closed out the match, a pinched nerve radiated pain to his pointer finger, which adversely affected his forehand.
The loss dented Federer’s armor. His point total in the world rankings sank by 550 and his advantage over the No. 2-ranked Lleyton Hewitt dropped as much as 1,000 points. His lead was still equivalent to two Grand Slam titles-but the year was still young and many things could happen. Although Federer achieved his second-best result ever at the Australian Open and narrowly missed reaching the final, fundamental questions were being asked.
Was Tony Roche the wrong man for the job as coach? Could Marat Safin, who won the title, threaten Roger and take his spot as world No. 1? Had Roger lost the aura of invincibility?