Bill Simons
The new tennis year is revving up and questions abound. Can Carlos Alcaraz win in Melbourne and gain a career Grand Slam at just 22? Will old man Djokovic shock us all and surpass Margaret Court by winning his 25th Slam – or finally hang up his weary sneakers?
Will Aryna Sabalenka again impose? Could Madison Keys somehow defend her Australian Open title? Will Coco Gauff grab the No. 1 ranking? Will the WTA’s grand elder, the newly married Venus Williams, win a match or two? Or, dare we ask, will an American man, after their 23-year drought, finally win a Slam?
But one thing is certain: this will be the Year of Roger – Federer, that is.
In the most predictable result since McEnroe and Connors their first spat, Roger Federer was voted into the august International Tennis Hall of Fame, where he will be inducted in August 25-27.
If ever there was the opposite of a surprise, this is it. We don’t know whether the vote was unanimous – that’s apparently a state secret – but who, exactly, would vote against God?
Then again, halls of fame can be quirky and baffling. Please don’t get me started on how Black Sox catcher Ray Schalk somehow got into the Baseball Hall of Fame. And, to me, it’s baffling that legendary Stanford coach Dick Gould still isn’t in the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
For reasons no one can quite explain, it also took decades for Jack Kramer – the king of Southern California tennis – to be inducted into the Southern California Tennis Hall of Fame. Billie Jean King, meanwhile, who is in roughly half a billion halls of fame and lived in Northern California for a long stretch, won’t accept her induction into the NorCal Tennis Hall of Fame because she feels that, decades ago, a regional tennis boss did her wrong. It’s a long story.
Of course, baseball’s all-time hits leader Pete Rose, home-run king Barry Bonds, and Yankee icon Roger Clemens still haven’t been voted into Cooperstown. Gambling on your own team, tax-evasion convictions, and steroid scandals can muddy the waters.
In contrast, Federer was beloved on court, and his off-court footprint sometimes brings to mind Mother Teresa – helping children in dusty African villages, doing clinics in San Francisco parks, and sounding like a sage while delivering “What’s the meaning of life?” speeches at Ivy League schools.
Had Roger not gotten in, the lords of the game would have launched an immediate investigation – possibly with pitchforks involved.
Of course, we know Roger’s numbers: 103 titles, 20 Grand Slams, 237 consecutive weeks at No. 1, 23 straight major semifinals. But more than stats, he was the man who could not avoid beauty. Watching Federer at his peak was to glimpse a world briefly arranged as it should be.
And in August, he will be in the Hall of Fame – as he should be.
Last year, in one of the bigger surprises in Hall of Fame history, inductee Maria Sharapova’s great and sometimes bitter rival Serena Williams appeared to deliver a breathtaking speech before the Russian was inaugurated.
Now we can only hope that Rafael Nadal – who early in his career said, “If I think that I am better than Federer, that will be very stupid and very arrogant,” – will introduce Roger. We’ll also be watching to see whether Wimbledon honors its eight-time champion with one of its trademark ceremonies of pomp and flair.
In the meantime, the Australian Open is honoring Federer – and for good reason. He has deep ties Down Under – some joke that Australia is Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. Federer’s early coaches, Peter Carter and Tony Roche, were Australians. The six-time Australian Open champion has often vacationed there with his family, and he considers it a home away from home.
When Federer won one of his six Australian titles in 2017, he was returning after six months away and knee surgery. He ended up rewriting his rivalry with Nadal one more time. It’s one of his favorite memories.
Roger confided he was “super ready” to step away from tennis when he did and retirement has been far easier than he expected. In Melbourne, amazingly, he downed the two-time Slam finalist Casper Ruud, who is No. 13 in the world, 7-2 in a tiebreak exhibition. Not surprisingly, there were on-line pleas for the 44-year old to return to the circuit. Saturday night he will be part of a doubles bonanza alongside Andre Agassi, Pat Rafter, and Lleyton Hewitt.
Roger recalled his times at the Aussie Open: “I’ve experienced so many emotions on Laver Arena – the joy of lifting ‘Norman’ six times, the honor of playing in front of Rod Laver himself, the challenge of competing against my biggest rivals, and always the overwhelming love and support of the Australian fans.”
As for men’s tennis these days, Federer has hit with both Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz. He calls them incredible ball strikers and says their rivalry has pushed the game past the Big Three era. In particular, he said that last year’s French Open final “was unreal. For a second, the world stood still and watched…[it was] one of the greatest games we’ve had.”
And let’s not forget one key historical nugget: Federer was the one who dubbed the Australian Open “The Happy Slam.”
How fitting. After all, voting Roger Federer into the Hall of Fame may be the biggest slam-dunk decision in tennis history.
And all of tennis is happy. Editor’s note: For tickets to the August 27-29 Hall of Fame induction of Federer and Mary Carillo go to tennisfame.com. Ticket sales begin on February 11.
