Federer, a perfectionist in continuous evolution

Roger Federer, whoever or whatever, was granted a natural gift for playing tennis.

It is obvious that his racket has always been the extension of his surgical right arm and that the Swiss also has a privileged ability to discover and draw angles that do not exist in the minds of most tennis players.

There has surely not been a player with greater determination to decide the point or as fabulous in the execution of the shot, whether in motion or static.

To his technical mastery is added, in addition, an extraordinary one to make the most difficult easy: to reconcile a binomial as uncontrollable as space-time.

That Federer is a gifted player is not lost on anyone, but those who have followed his trail or those who know him closely speak of a born worker.

There is magic and innateness, virtuosity, yes, but behind the legend there are also hours and hours of improvement and rehearsals.

Although on the tracks he has developed from a sixth sense and on many occasions from improvisation, flashes of genius, the Swiss has never skimped when it comes to going to the gym and analyzing his rivals.

He loves to watch the games and his physique is deceiving: although he is not a

, he is thin as a reed and has a lower body of steel.

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That is to say, behind the entire show and the unlikely points there is a full-fledged hard worker.

Federer is born, but also made.

"There are always ways to improve a little more," he conceded in May 2019 during the last meeting he had with EL PAÍS.

“It can be a hit here or there, or how you organize yourself, to recalibrate everything, the mental preparation, where I train… There are always little things to do.

I always try to return to my best level, and for that I have to prove it day by day”, he added during that meeting at the Caja Mágica in Madrid, which lasted for half an hour in which, in addition to talking about his tennis, he delved into his intimacy and expressed that, if he had been able to choose, he would have liked to be “a normal person”.

Federer never was.

Not in tennis terms, at least.

His perfectionist profile and his constant desire to evolve and polish a most Cartesian proposal were building a player very different from the one he began to hit his first pitches;

essentially the same, but in a different way.

For this, he made use of numerous technicians who were filing down edges, providing solutions and adapting to the times.

The original Federer who got angry easily and lost his temper more than once when he was a youth is not the same as the mature tennis player who collected Grand Slams or the veteran forced to reinvent himself in his thirties to follow the beat.

Michael Jordan's mirror

He never stopped innovating.

The same was invented a half court return to corner the rivals that transformed the backhand to harden it and counterattack, or redesigned his Wilson (lighter, wider and thicker frame) in search of flatter and more damaging trajectories.

It didn't matter how old he was.

That was the key to placate the devastating right of Rafael Nadal.

“He has changed tennis forever”, praises Ivan Ljubicic, the last coach who has shaped it, along with his friend Severin Luthi.

“He has been chosen for 19 consecutive years as the tennis player most loved by fans [in the voting proposed by the ATP at the end of each season] and has taken tennis to another level.

All his rivals had to evolve to keep up with him, ”adds the coach, who closes a long list that reflects the permanent desire of the Swiss to climb a step.

Roger Federer, Billie Jean King and Michael Jordan, in 2014. MATTHEW STOCKMAN (AFP)

He broke into the elite under the orders of Peter Carter (1998-2000), who died in a traffic accident that marked the tennis player a lot;

he picked up the baton (from 2000 to 2003) Peter Lundgren, with whom he raised his first major (Wimbledon 2003);

then came Tony Roche (2005-2007) and the Spaniard José Higueras, hired (2008) with the aim of re-dimensioning his game on clay and thus being able to tread the top of Roland Garros;

Paul Annacone would later occupy the bench and before the Croatian Ljubicic settled down as the adviser in the final stretch (from 2015), the Swiss worked with one of his idols, the Swedish Stefan Edberg, with whom between 2014 and 2015 he gained aggressiveness and multiplied his game at the net.

“I am not Mr. Perfect”

Beyond the exquisiteness in the forms and the sobriety on the court, all of them describe a devourer of victories and a meticulous and fierce competitor, who took inspiration from his great idol: basketball player Michael Jordan.

“He was

player.

He transcended basketball and was a hero to our entire generation,” Federer stated a few years ago.

“His longevity, the way he made it look easy, his will to win, to want to be the best, to succeed under pressure, to be a superstar in a team sport, to perform at his best for so many years… He he was my hero.”

Apart from the

of the Bulls, he also had references to Edberg himself and the German Boris Becker.

In all of them he found clues, tricks, solutions and motivation to go beyond the limits.

“I don't think I'm perfect, what I want is to continue being someone normal.

I think that the media have created this image of me a bit”, assured the Swiss to EL PAÍS in an interview carried out in May 2015, with the French Embassy as a framework.

In times of vanities and more than questionable models, Federer's sensible message: "I know that I am a reference for many children and I take this very seriously, but I do not think that Mr. Perfect is the right adjective for me, it is totally exaggerated".

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