[Rogi] 泰晤士報獨家專訪Roger Federer
有點長，沒時間翻，大家練練英讀吧。或是有請其他高手幫忙。
其中有一段Roger談到今年在Miami對Djokovic時，大摔拍的心情。
覺得很有意思，抓了出來。畢竟這可以那一陣子最熱門的話題XD。
很高興Roger能走過那一段時間的低潮，不管那時大家是如何唱衰他。
他還是堅持過來了。我就喜歡這種堅持，這種抗壓性，這種自信。
做為一名球員，在場上打球實在是很不容易，
Roger以前對球迷太好了，大家只要等他上場，然後贏球。
有些人開始忘了他要付出多少，才能在場上美麗得打球。
“I suffered in Melbourne; nobody enjoys crying on the stage. In Miami I
started well in the event, I had beaten Andy [Roddick] and I felt I would
have the better of Novak [Djokovic] in the semi-finals, and it was going fine
for a while when all of a sudden I was in a slump. I couldn’t hit the ball
in the court any more. I had chances early in the second set, but my serve
wasn’t clicking, my forehand and backhand went. It was a nightmare. Do you
know what? I was just so sick and tired of playing so bad that when I missed
that easy forehand I said, ‘It’s OK, just let it out.’ I was actually
surprised how hard I crushed my racket.
墨爾本的落敗很不好受，沒人喜歡在頒獎台上哭泣。
在邁阿密的賽事，一開始進行得不錯，我擊敗了大安迪，我也覺得我可以在半決賽擊敗
Novak。但突然間一切都不對勁了。在場上我再也無法打到球。第二盤剛開始時我是有機
會的，但我的發球不管用，我的正、反拍都消失了。這真是惡夢。你知道嗎，我對自己打
得這麼爛感到既生氣又疲累，所以當我連一個簡單的正拍都打掛網時，我說"It's OK,
just let it out." 我後來倒是挺驚訝拍子可以被我摔得這麼爛。
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/tennis/article6069789.ece
From The Times June 20, 2009
Exclusive: Roger Federer: my tears of delight at joining legends
Neil Harman, Tennis Correspondent
When the morning skies grow red
And o’er us their radiance shed,
Thou, O Lord, appearest in their light.
When the Alps glow bright with splendour,
Pray to God, to Him surrender,
For you feel and understand,
That He dwelleth in this land.
To the Swiss, Roger Federer is a living god. The evocative music and lyrics
of his country’s national anthem — the Swiss Psalm — rang around Federer’
s head when, only 13 days ago, he stood on a podium in Paris, a single tear
running down each cheek, at one moment alone in his own world and yet knowing
that he was in the whole world’s embrace.
That sense of abiding warmth has not left him in the intervening days, even
when he has been alone at home with his thoughts, family and friends for
occasional succour before he prepared to set out again, the conquest not
nearly done, another Alp to scale, eager for the next challenge at the place
where this sport — his sport — takes on an entirely new definition.
But, for a few moments, though the setting is a glorious afternoon at the All
England Club, Federer’s mind instinctively goes back to Roland Garros and
the presentation ceremony for his fourteenth grand-slam singles title,
equalling Pete Sampras’s record, which many believed would stand for all
time, until this phenomenal man from Basle came along. “It is the heaviest
trophy,” he says. “And a few times during the tournament I had been
thinking, ‘I wonder how it will feel.’ It’s quite a thought because you don
’t want to get carried away, but you want to start dreaming a bit because
dreaming, well, it’s inspirational. It can help by getting even more from
you than you think it is possible to give.
“There were three defining moments that day. The first was when I walked
out, the second when I started the third set [against Robin Soderling],
having won the first two, and then when I collected the balls to serve for
the match. I was thinking, ‘What an unbelievable feeling it would be to win
this tournament.’ I was so close. I hoped I wasn’t going to mess it up.
“The elation was amazing. Then I walked up to the podium and Andre [Agassi]
was standing there smiling, the last man to win all four [grand-slam
tournaments]. That was a very strong moment for me. Then I was lifting the
cup, letting it all out, I was the happiest person in the world, I was
totally free, happy and proud all at the same time and I was sharing it with
all the people in the stadium because they were so happy for me as well.”
Then the Swiss Psalm began. Federer looked down, into the base of the cup, he
tried to look up but the resonance of the music made him look down again. One
tear slid down each of his cheeks. I told him that I get choked up at
anthems. “It’s hard, isn’t it?” he says. “I love music in general, but I
especially like the classics, opera and musicals.
“Actually I like lots of different stuff when the mood takes me. But the
anthem, few tennis players ever get to hear theirs. They play them in Monte
Carlo and in Paris and, of course, in the Davis Cup before the Saturday
doubles and at the Olympics.
“When Stan [Stanislas Wawrinka] and I won the gold medal in doubles for
Switzerland in Beijing, it was played. But we aren’t footballers who hear it
perhaps 50 times a year. For us it has a very special meaning.
“You know when you hear it that a great thing is either about to happen or
has just happened. It was very emotional sharing it not only with the Swiss
people, but so many around the world who knew how much winning this
tournament meant to me.”
There was a seminal moment at the All England Club this week when Federer
walked down the hill from the Aorangi Park practice courts as if there was a
foot of air between his feet and the pavement. Going in the opposite
direction, uphill, eyes firmly set, jaw jutting and feet killing him was
Rafael Nadal. Three weeks ago, the conjecture was whether Nadal could
complete the first calendar grand slam in 40 years; the next thing you knew,
he had become a physical wreck and people were beginning to debate Federer’s
prospects of collecting 20 grand-slam titles before he turns 30.
“This is a quick-living sport,” Federer said. “We went into Paris with
Rafa as the overwhelming favourite; nobody could beat him, he was No 1 in the
world, possibly for life and the next thing, he doesn’t defend Paris and he
cannot defend Wimbledon, the No 1 ranking is in the air. It’s funny how it
can change.” Though with Nadal’s melancholy withdrawal last night,
amusement was in short supply.
We had talked at the club at the same stage last year, when Federer arrived
at Wimbledon bruised from the French Open final, when he won only four games
against Nadal and was out of France before you could say NetJets (the firm
from whom he hires his private planes). He still wonders why there was “such
a big fuss” over that defeat.
“It made no difference to me whether it was in five sets or three, but I
arrived here and everyone was saying, ‘Oh my God, you got crushed, are you
ever going to recover?’ ” he says. “They seemed to think it was the end
for me and I was thinking, ‘What?’ But OK, it doesn’t matter now, that was
fine.”
Federer is sitting in a wicker chair on the players’ balcony in grey
trousers and a white T-shirt with RF emblazoned on the front in light purple
lettering. “I guess that after the win in Paris this time I was able to be
normal for a while, sitting at home with Mirka [his wife of two months, who
is pregnant with their first child, due very soon],” he says. “I’m not
able to do normal very often. Now I am back here. It’s not showing off in
any way, but it’s nice to be back at Wimbledon and you meet up with so many
people telling you how happy they are for you, how much they were cheering
for you.
“It has been an incredible time. Now I can meet up with the players again
and find out how it was for them and how it is for me. It was so good because
before Madrid [last month] I hadn’t won a tournament for a long time [since
the previous October] and it is nice to be back in this routine.
“It’s extraordinary for me because you figure everybody would like someone
else to win, but maybe it’s the way I react to winning, the way I am
respectful to the others and how fair I am because the players have voted for
me five times to win the Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award. What I can say
is, ‘Thank you very much, thank you for being happy for me.’ It does you
good as a player to hear that once in a while.”
That is 59 once-in-a-whiles for Federer, 27. Each one has its magic, but the
grand-slam tournaments, the barometers by which greatness is judged, are his
raison d’être. Since the 2004 French Open, when he lost in the third round
to Gustavo Kuerten, of Brazil, he has reached the semi-finals of 20
grand-slam events in succession. He has won four of the past six Masters Cups
and has lost once in six years at Wimbledon.
He was supposed to arrive at SW19 as a basket case, unable to contend any
more. The images the naysayers worshipped were of a weeping Federer in
Australia in February after his five-set defeat by Nadal in the final, the
racket-splintering Federer in Miami, Florida. Here was a man in meltdown.
“When I started out on my career, I had wanted to be a good role model,” he
says. “But I didn’t want it to be forced. I couldn’t fake my way through
ten or 15 years. My parents had always taught me, ‘Don’t throw your racket,
don’t swear on the court, don’t scream, enjoy the game, play it fair, but
tough.’ I said, ‘OK, right, let’s see how it goes.’ It took me many
years, but I got it going.
“I received so many compliments on how I played and behaved and it gave me a
good feeling because I knew how I was on the court, how I needed to be to be
a success and also to be respected in the locker room. I was walking a
tightrope for many years, because people who saw me winning thought I was the
best in the world and when I was losing, they said I wasn’t trying, which
was a big problem.
“Then it got to a stage when I was pretending I was fighting but I wasn’t
really fighting, so I was pretending even harder, showing more so people
wouldn’t write bad things about me. It was not a fun thing to go through.
“I suffered in Melbourne; nobody enjoys crying on the stage. In Miami I
started well in the event, I had beaten Andy [Roddick] and I felt I would
have the better of Novak [Djokovic] in the semi-finals, and it was going fine
for a while when all of a sudden I was in a slump. I couldn’t hit the ball
in the court any more. I had chances early in the second set, but my serve
wasn’t clicking, my forehand and backhand went. It was a nightmare. Do you
know what? I was just so sick and tired of playing so bad that when I missed
that easy forehand I said, ‘It’s OK, just let it out.’ I was actually
surprised how hard I crushed my racket.
“So, I cried in Melbourne and smashed the racket in Miami. They said, ‘Oh,
he’s just got married and now he’s expecting a baby, so he’s going crazy
because he must be really nervous about something.’ Or it’s, ‘Oh, he sees
the end coming.’ I suppose I had shown so little in all the big matches I
had won, so people started to believe they could read me, but they can’t. It
’s good and it’s bad, but I know I can influence it in a big way, but I can
’t always control the winning and the losing, especially the losing.”
There are not many who expect him to endure that sensation these next two
weeks. He is about to become a father, which excites him immensely. No one —
bar the couple and their closest family — knows when Mirka is due, but we
understand that it is within the month. And so what if . . .
“We actually haven’t talked about it,” Federer says. “We have not
announced the date, but let us just say . . . well, it’s Mirka’s decision.
I know she would say, ‘You go and play and join me later.’ I want to be
there, of course. We will juggle it as well as we can. At the moment she is
doing just fine, I am there to support her. She’s doing great, we are very
happy.
“People ask me what is next and it’s a fair question. Today, my love of the
game is so strong that I’m not worried about motivation, I actually think
having a child will motivate me more. I would like to play for many more
years and that is Mirka’s wish as well. What has happened in this pregnancy
has opened my mind, that is nice.
“I have come back again to Wimbledon to start from scratch. What happened
last year is gone, it doesn’t matter. It was logical to lose one day and
Rafa deserved it, absolutely. I am honoured, proud and excited to be back. I
have come back to win. I need a good result to satisfy my needs.”
Putting a figure on Federer's success
5
Matches that Roger Federer has lost at Wimbledon. He went out in the first
round in 1999 (defeated by Jiri Novak), 2000 (Yevgeny Kafelnikov), 2002
(Mario Ancic), the quarter-finals in 2001 (Tim Henman) and lost in the final
last year to Rafael Nadal.
4hr 48min
The time it took Nadal to beat Federer — the longest grand-slam tournament
final in history.
65
Matches that Federer had previously gone unbeaten on grass, eclipsing Björn
Borg’s record of 41.
237
Consecutive weeks for which Federer held the world No 1 ranking — from
February 2, 2004, until August 18, 2008, when Nadal took over.
12
Titles that Federer won in 2006, the most by any player in ATP Tour history
in a year. The previous best was 11 by Ivan Lendl in 1985. Federer has won a
total of 59 titles.
$48,072,634
Federer’s career prize money (now about ￡29 million) — another record,
surpassing Pete Sampras's total of $43,280,489.
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