Federer as James’s Romantic

In this post, Yatharth quotes this passage from Beyond a Boundary:

New technique consists in lessening such margins [of error], not in maintaining or expanding them. Some young Romantic will extend the boundaries of cricket technique with a classical perfection. .. He will drive overhead and push through any number of short-legs, as W.G. used to do, so that a whole race of bowlers will go underground for fifteen years as they did once, and once more emerge with new tricks. .. Our Romantic will do these things or other things – what he will – and the big battalions will follow in his train. We shall extol his eyesight, his wristwork, his footwork, his audacity, to which some nationalist fanatics will add his ancestry and climate. He may come from Pudsey or South Sydney, Nawanagar or Bridgetown. But wherever he comes from, and whatever he does, he will be doing what W.G. did – so reshaping the medium that it can give new satisfactions to new people.

This chapter (Decline of the West)¹ and the passage quoted here are among my favourites. When I began to appreciate Roger Federer in the second half of 2004, I kept going back to this passage again and again. I thought Roger was the very embodiment of this young Romantic: the lessening of margins of errors (how often does his immense topspin cause the ball to dip on or just inside the baseline), extension of technique with a classical perfection (how about the half volley backhand drive pass from the baseline or the slice pass to a net-rusher), whole race of opponents driven underground (big serving Roddick and counterpunching Hewitt), reshaping the medium to give new satisfactions to new people (yes, even the Americans get it now).

How lucky are we to have seen two of them.

¹ As pointed out, the chapter in question is of course The Welfare State of Mind. To paraphrase a quote from Yes Prime Minister, time and a separation from records have clouded one’s memory, though not unexpectedly for a person of one’s age.