Can’t-Miss Swiss Is Just What Game Needs

A sport badly in need of a new maestro happily handed the baton to a worthy conductor here Sunday.

His name is Roger Federer and he is from, of all places, Switzerland, where they have lots of snow, great skiers and great sailors. Also, Martina Hingis. There must be something in the drinking water at the indoor tennis clubs.

Winning Sunday’s Wimbledon men’s final, with a straight-set effort against Mark Philippoussis of Australia, was only part of the reason lots of people in coats and ties who make a living running the sport were exchanging high-fives. Federer has the whole package, and they know it.

Pat Cash, the Australian who won here in 1987 and now does television commentary, said it best. “He’s like Pete Sampras,” Cash said. “When he plays, there is a ‘wow’ factor.”

His statistics alone, in his 7-6 (5), 6-2, 7-6 (3) cruise past one of the biggest servers and hardest hitters in the world, were “wow”-worthy. Philippoussis never had a break point and never even got to deuce on Federer’s serve until the fourth game of the third set. Federer out-aced Philippoussis, 21-14, and won 89% of the points when he got his first serve in. Of the 195 points played, he won 108. He had 15 net winners, one more than an opponent who served 77 times and came to the net behind every one of them.

But statistics don’t fully describe how they are generated. With Federer, it is with a game that is as balanced and all-inclusive as that of anybody playing today. He not only serves well, but consistently. In each set, his top serve speed was 124 mph. His averages, by set, were 115, 116, 118.

His game is compact, almost no wasted motion. He returns well, plays intelligently and solidly off the ground and moves with amazing effortlessness. Where the 6-foot-4 Philippoussis lumbered, Federer floated. If Federer were a basketball player, he’d be Jamaal Wilkes.

The comparisons to Sampras, who won seven times here, began immediately and are undoubtedly driven by the desire of the tennis community to have champions with whom the general public can identify. Right now, the last man standing for that is Andre Agassi.

Andy Roddick, who lost decisively to Federer in the semifinals, made the point that Federer’s and Sampras’ games are different, that Sampras was more relentless. “Pete was all the time, all the time, all the time,” Roddick said. “Roger kind of plays a little bit more, then he picks his shot. Maybe he’s a little more patient.”

Boris Becker, a three-time winner here, said that it was good for tennis to have a champion like Federer because “he’s not a guy who just comes out and hits 130-mile-an-hour serves.”

Neither is Lleyton Hewitt, the champion here last year, who has traded the No. 1 ranking of late with Agassi. But Hewitt’s game is less appealing because it grinds, while Federer’s glides.

Federer, only 21, is also a more appealing personality, and the tennis community loved the fact that the general public got a good glimpse of that on the sport’s biggest stage.

During the match, he just played. No whining, no outbursts, not even when he had a service break taken away by chair umpire Gerry Armstrong, who overruled a linesperson who had called a Philippoussis second serve a fault. That was in the third set and, the way things were going, was effectively match point had the call stood. Tennis fans have come to expect, in that situation, the umpire to be approached angrily with a complaint along the lines of, “You cannot be serious.” Federer didn’t even twitch.

When Philippoussis’ last hope settled into the net, Federer went to his knees, got up and shook his opponent’s hand, got to his chair and then lost it, covering his face as the tears let loose.

“It was just, you know, that I could not believe it,” he said later. “You see the trophy, and it is so beautiful. Gold. You know you don’t have golden trophies so often.... You look at it and when you hold it, it is something you’ve always dreamed of.”

There was even some self-effacing humor. Asked during the courtside interview on BBC if he liked holding the trophy, Federer laughed and said, “I don’t think Pete ever got bored holding this.”

When he won an indoor tournament in Vienna last year, Federer dedicated it to his longtime coach, Peter Carter, who had died in an auto accident two months earlier. “I miss him a lot,” Federer said then.

So, tennis is now poised to ride the next wave, the future stardom of Roger Federer.

Poor Philippoussis, who had the best tournament of his life but the misfortune of running into a Racket Rembrandt in the final, will be riding a wave of his own.

“I’m just gonna go back to San Diego and go surfing,” he said.