Tennis: Five's Alive for Federer

Some champions affect indifference towards records, dismiss them as the refuge of a stats-crazed media. For Roger Federer they are his severest rival and measure of his greatness as his pre-eminence as a player continues to leave him isolated at the top of the game. He has been world number one since February 2004 and, even though Rafael Nadal has his number on clay, his lead over the Spaniard in the rankings is substantial and shows little sign of dwindling. Away from the dirt, Nadal's four-wheel drive still struggles to stay in touch with the smoothly accelerating Federermobile.

Talking to Federer, 25, on the eve of Wimbledon, where this year he will attempt to win tennis's crown of crowns for the fifth year running, has become a ritual as pleasing as watching him play. He is as meticulous an interviewee as he is a competitor - prepared, inventive and thoughtful. He rarely goes more than a few sentences without saying something interesting, as when he suddenly articulates an improbable worry: 'I don't like to be the enemy of the past who basically broke history.'

This is why, he says, he appreciates the kind words that have been said about him by the seven-time Wimbledon champion Pete Sampras, whose record he has in his sights, and other leading players. 'I'm always happy to know they're happy for me because I'll be the same way in the future.'

Earlier this year Federer spent some time with Sampras. It seems they talked as earnestly as scientists discussing a research project. 'The conversation was about how it is for me and how it was for him. Just comparing things like mindset.' And what especially did he get out of their meeting? 'Maybe he gave me a sense of security, even though I knew I was doing things right. He has a lot of admiration for how I handle things on and off the court and I also feel I'm doing the right things, so just to hear it from him - almost in a way backing me up and being happy for me when I play well and maybe even beat his record - is just nice for me to hear.'

Sampras is one of two players to have won seven Wimbledons - Willie Renshaw did it in the nineteenth century - and Federer says only now is he ready to talk about breaking this record. 'I always said I wasn't going to as long as I hadn't reached halfway. Now that I've done this it crosses my mind much more regularly, although when you lose a final such as the French Open [Nadal beat him in four sets a fortnight ago] it shows how difficult it is to win grand slams.' Federer's tally of 10 grand-slam titles puts him fifth equal in the all-time list, four behind the table-topping Sampras.

If he does win this year, as he surely will, Federer will achieve something Sampras never managed: five Wimbledons in a row. The American's wins were in sequences of three and four with Richard Krajicek's victory in 1996 interrupting his run. Was he thankful to Krajicek for this? 'No, I thank myself for beating Sampras in 2001,' he says, smiling. His fourth-round victory over Sampras that year was, as many suspected, a changing of the champions, even if it took until 2003 before Federer started his hegemony.

Bjorn Borg did manage it five years in a row from 1976-80, standing deep behind the baseline and hitting table tennis-style top spin until John McEnroe put a stop to the nonsense. McEnroe sussed how to deal with the Swede and drove him into retirement. 'Bjorn has always been very nice, saying if anyone was to equal his achievement he would like it to be me,' says Federer. 'That is very, very kind. I have a lot of admiration for him. To equal Bjorn would be an incredible achievement.'

Federer has won his past 48 matches on grass, a record he might have extended had he followed his routine of the past four years and gone straight from the French Open in Paris to the grass event in Halle in Germany. Andy Roddick remarked at Queen's the week before last that if he, Roddick, had found a formula that worked so successfully he would not have changed it. Federer is mildly irked by this. 'He doesn't live in my body so he doesn't know how I felt,' he says. 'Before the French final I said I'm definitely going to play Halle, but after it I said I'm definitely not going to play Halle. I just felt my back, I felt my groin and I was like this is only going to feel worse the next day, am I going to take a chance on my health?'

Generally mild-mannered, Federer knows what the important issues are and faces them unflinchingly. His decision last month to split with his coach of two years, the 62-year-old Australian Tony Roche, surprised nearly everyone. It was like telling a favorite uncle to push off. Did it reveal a ruthless streak? 'Well, the career of a tennis professional is short. Although I don't think I'm an egoistical person, when it comes to tennis you have to be a bit egoistic. Why did we part? The communication wasn't that good any more between us, but it also shows I want to get new information and move on and become a better player. It's just too short to waste time even if the decisions are hard.'

Understandably, the queue to succeed Roche is a long one, 40 or so, made up, Federer says, of people he has never heard of, people nobody has ever heard of, serious applicants and the real deals. He is still trying to decide, though, what he wants from his new coach given that there is no one around who can teach Roger Federer how to play tennis. 'Just something different that I can make work. Someone maybe who can help out analyzing other players,' he says.

Organization, he says, is the key to how he has managed without a coach. 'I've been well organized for the past three or four years,' he adds, as if inviting us to believe his life was a shambles before that. 'Mirka [Vavrinec, his girlfriend] takes care of the press, Tony [Godsick, his agent] takes care of the sponsoring and my parents [Lynette and Robbie] take care of the request for charity.'

Having no coach served Federer well enough when he ended Nadal's 81-match winning streak on clay in Hamburg straight after dismissing Roche, but in Paris his going it alone was no match for Team Nadal as he lost to the Spaniard in the final for the second year running. He is, though, understandably confident that just as he did a year ago he can reverse the Paris result if they meet in the title match at Wimbledon in a fortnight's time.

Federer says he did not share the media's surprise that Nadal, with his clay-court game, made it to the 2006 final because 'he is a great player and a great athlete and I think today there's not that many players who attack on grass any more to make it really dangerous for him - or me. I'm not saying that the game's weaker, but it's more predictable and for a guy like him who's so strong from the baseline it means he is able to dominate the other guys.' Still, Federer places Roddick, the runner-up in 2004 and 2005, and Lleyton Hewitt, the 2002 champion, marginally ahead of Nadal as those he most fears over the next two weeks.

Fears is probably overstating it. Boris Becker used to call Center Court his living room. 'I could say that, too, couldn't I? I've got the keys to it at the moment, for sure,' says Federer, in a voice as free from anxiety as it is possible to imagine.