Elegant Federer ready to sting like a bee

TENNIS:FOUR WINS stand between Roger Federer and tennis history. If form, state of mind and perfectly pressed shorts count for anything, the elegant and lethal Swiss will win the men's singles title for the seventh time next Sunday, equalling the record of Pete Sampras, with Rafael Nadal a beaten but dignified bystander.

At the halfway stage of the championships, it is Federer who stands tallest among the big four of the men’s game. After a brief sabbatical from greatness he is moving again like Nijinsky (the dancer) and hitting like Ali (not the prophet).

The world number three, sitting just behind Nadal and Novak Djokovic and in front of Andy Murray, looks and sounds like a champion after 18 months without his name on a grand slam trophy, a desert of a stretch for a player who has come not so much to expect success as to demand it.

As he closes in on Sampras, hoping to stretch his tally of Majors to 17, seven beyond that of Nadal who beat him at Roland Garros a few weeks ago, Federer is careful not to disturb his own carefully manufactured serenity.

After beating the slightly faded version of another superb talent in David Nalbandian on Saturday Federer ever so firmly set aside the suggestion that, in his previous pomp here, he had said he felt like, “he owned the place”.

“I don’t think I ever said that,” he replied. “I always just feel very good here, around the grounds, on the court. Obviously the more you win, the more confidence you get.”

That is what he used to say, though, or subtle variations on the theme. And, as he admitted, it sometimes has cost him.

“Then again,” he added, “I’ve learned my lesson early on in my career where I used to underestimate opponents because of the way they played, the way their techniques worked out or just said: ‘Against this guy, I can’t lose on grass’. Next thing you know, that’s what happens.”

Arrogance, or whatever euphemism his fans would like to use, may occasionally have brought him to grief but it is also what has sustained him throughout a career in which only Nadal has consistently pierced his aura. Whatever he may say, Federer always thinks he is going to win.

Federer has not given up a set in three matches here. He has hit the ball sweetly and with precision against opponents as far apart in ability as the Kazak Mikhail Kukushkin in round one and a hobbling Nalbandian on Saturday, when he played stunning first-strike tennis for a 6-4, 6-2, 6-4 win that inspired him to observe, with justification: “I think I played a great match.”

Today it is his turn on Court One and Mikhail Youzhny’s turn to feel the heat of his racket. To lend context to the Russian’s task, the 18th seed took five sets to get out of the first round against the Argentinian Juan Monaco. And, if Youzhny caught a glimpse of Federer hitting with Murray’s fourth-round opponent, Richard Gasquet, yesterday, he will be no more encouraged about his chances.

The Scot, who could yet upset all half-time calculations if he finds his serve, has lost twice and won twice against the Frenchman, one of the game’s brittle talents. Murray’s victories arrived when it mattered most, from two sets down here in 2008 and again with that handicap in last year’s French Open.

Murray and Gasquet open on Centre Court with Nadal providing the evening banquet against Juan Martin del Potro, probably the most dangerous dark horse to grace this grass since, well, Nalbandian on Saturday night. This is a serious test for the defending champion. Nadal has hardly been in the doldrums but reaching and losing four finals this year, all against Djokovic, will surely have tested even his tungsten self-belief.

In this tournament he has taken a little while to rediscover his Parisian edge, after leaving Queen’s exhausted but, like Federer, Nadal has the precious gift of an extra gear. He could need it if Del Potro’s serve hits an early groove, as did that powerful weapon of John Isner at the French Open, when the American went two sets ahead as if waging world war three on his own.

For Djokovic Wimbledon provides a test of a different kind. It has been his mission here to get back on the runaway horse that was his pre-semi-final gallop in Paris, a heady dash of 43 straight victories, halted by the class and patience of Federer. In his first week on grass, the Serb started like the other, equine, Nijinsky against Jeremy Chardy, conceding six games, eased a little to beat Kevin Anderson and dropped a set against the always difficult Marcos Baghdatis. Today, as an hors d’oeuvre to the Federer main course, he has the Frenchman Michael Llodra, seeded 19.

Federer’s mission, as he sees it, is to crush his peers with quiet artistry. He is 30 in August, a contented father and genius but he wants the applause as much now as when he first came to this place as a wide-eyed kid in 1998.

As John McEnroe observed recently of Federer’s hunger compared with that of Sampras, whom the Swiss beat here 10 years ago: “His enthusiasm is more than Pete’s.” And, as Federer himself observed on Saturday night: “It doesn’t come in phases. I’m always hungry.