The Master (Post Retirement Edition)
by Christopher Clarey
Reviewed by John Yandell
I've known Chris Clarey for a lot of years and closely followed his reporting on tennis in the New York Times. In my view, this biography of Roger is the best thing he has written and the most important.
Yes it's about Roger. And that in itself is enough to make it interesting. The subtitle is “The Long Run and Beautiful Game of Roger Federer." Both true.
But to me what makes this book a must is the interweaving. We see the detailed story of Roger's development as a young player and a young person. We see the competitive moments from the juniors and the full sweep of Roger's playing career from the inside--with the views of Roger, his coaches, and his family.
We see his family dynamics, the ins and outs of his business life, and the incredible number and variety of enterprises he was and is involved with. And the ease and grace, candor and dry humor he seemed to maintain effortlessly.
It's also a snapshot history of modern tennis. Roger's rivals, his predecessors, his coaches. With a lot of inside detail.
Honestly I don't read a lot of tennis books or tennis history books, or tennis biographies. But I buzzed through this one in three days of continuous reading. I had to do some other things, but every chance I had I came back to this book.
New Level
After he lost a best of 5 set match 6-3, 6-0, 6-4 to Federer in the then Houston based Masters Cup, Andre Agassi said: “Our game has forever been changed. This guy is just taking this game to a whole new level. We haven't seen this type of level before."
And yes now Nadal and Djokovic have surpassed Roger's 20 Slam titles, but close observers of the game know exactly what Andre meant.
One of the fascinating things about Roger's career is how it all got started, and almost didn't get started, and almost stopped, and the twists and turns and steps forward and setbacks before Roger ever played his first pro match.
We tend to think of the rise of great champions as inevitable—and maybe it is and maybe it's not. But it was not a straight line march for Roger.
He began playing at age 8 at a club in Basel. He was also a gifted junior soccer player. He almost chose soccer. Instead he ended up moving to an academy at age 14 where he had to learn French from zero.
Then there was his quirky sense of humor and his struggle to learn to control his emotions, including, surprisingly, anger.
Peter Carter, the Australian coach who died tragically on his honeymoon in South Africa, was a big influence—definitely in the choice of the one-handed backhand and probably in the development of his distinctive sideways head position at contact on his forehand.
But all that is just the start of the story Chris tells. He had incredible access to Roger and all the insiders.
I followed Fed pretty closely once he rose on the tour, but I was still surprised by a lot of what Chris uncovers on Roger's way to the top and after he was at the top. The post script to his career, new for this edition, is also fascinating. Get this book and read it for yourself. You will be glad if you do.
