Roger Federer Profile

Sport compels through its drama, emotional pull, occasional heroism and habit of throwing up the unexpected. It captivates courtesy of the skill, timing, athleticism and mental readiness for the big moment, or not, of its contestants. It is a battle of wits, a road to riches, a mirror on our world and a trigger for jingoism, hooliganism and cheating, but also for mass happiness of the most uplifting sort. Nadia Comaneci's grace, Lance Armstrong's bloody-minded determination, Jonny Wilkinson's deadly accuracy, Ronaldinho's trickery, Freddie Flintoff's aggression: all thrill the senses and confirm sport's array of qualities.

And then there is Roger Federer. Apart from gymnastics and ice-skating, discussion of sport rarely involves the word 'beauty' or its derivatives.

But world sport has no more aesthetically pleasing performer, and few more lethal. In most conversations about him among the tennis cognoscenti, rapture descends and superlatives flow. Very quickly, those involved start gushing about his sumptuous style, describing him as a genius and comparing his displays to Old Masters, great symphonies or other works of art. Just the other day, Simon Barnes of the Times, admittedly Britain's most colourful sportswriter, was so overwhelmed by the manner of the Swiss's latest victory that he opened his match report thus: 'It is becoming increasingly apparent that Roger Federer was Leonardo da Vinci in a previous life.' And, he added, while 'Leonardo was perhaps the last man on earth to understand the entirety of Western thought and culture ... Federer seeks only to defeat other tennis players, but to do so in a way that avoids beauty is beyond him'.

Federer, already the most feted and successful player of his generation, will today seek to establish himself as one of the sport's most illustrious names with a third consecutive men's singles titles on the All England Club's lush lawns. At 2pm, he faces a Centre Court showdown with Andy Roddick, the relentlessly hard-hitting American number two seed. If he wins, Federer will stand alongside Björn Borg and Pete Sampras as the only men since tennis entered the open era in 1968 to capture three in a row, and will have equalled the record of two previous champions who will spend this afternoon as BBC commentators, Boris Becker and John McEnroe.

The 13,802 fortunate enough to have tickets, and the millions watching on television, will see at first hand a player whom Roddick describes as 'probably the most talented person to ever carry a racket around'. Even Rod Laver, the only man to win all four Grand Slams in a year twice, admits he would 'be honoured to be even compared with Roger', who, he adds, 'could be the greatest tennis player of all time'.

Michael Stich, who won Wimbledon in 1991 and is part of Radio Five Live's team of pundits in SW19, thinks Federer already is the finest player in history. 'He's the most talented player I've ever seen, the best all-courts player. Better than Borg, McEnroe and the rest. Pete Sampras is the most successful ever in terms of Grand Slam wins [14], but I think Roger's got a better backhand and is stronger, smoother and better on clay than Pete - a more complete player. And he plays the more beautiful tennis.'

A Battery of statistics underlines the 23-year-old's command of a men's game which boasts a real depth of talent in the shape of Roddick, Marat Safin, Lleyton Hewitt and fast-emerging youngsters such as Rafael Nadal, Richard Gasquet and Andy Murray. Federer has won his last 35 matches on grass and, more frighteningly, his last 20 finals. So far this year, he has won seven tournaments, 90 per cent of his service games and 76 per cent of his first service points, and dispatched almost 400 aces. It is not that the others are poor; it is that the polite young man from Basle is so brilliant.

His calmness on court, excellence and utter dominance evoke images of some of sport's true greats. Stich sees Federer as a throwback to an age of elegant, gentleman players such as Laver, and as 'very good for tennis because of the way he plays and conducts himself'. Does he have a weakness? If so, paradoxically, it may be an over-abundance of talent. His abilities are so great that he is often spoilt for choice when deciding which shot to play, which occasionally causes indecision. Some problem.

While Federer's on-court mastery is widely appreciated, many view him as a disappointingly bland star in the mould of a Michael Schumacher or Michael Owen, as annoyingly nice. They lament the absence of the dysfunction, or air of danger, which helped make Jennifer Capriati, Monica Seles and McEnroe so fascinating. Federer is certainly humble, sincere, generous to opponents, respectful to officials and almost laughably typically Swiss.

When he won his first Wimbledon title in 2003, he left the champions' dinner to grab an early night. The wildest thing he does now is listen to AC/DC, the famously loud heavy metal group, at full volume in his car. He has a steady girlfriend, Mirka Vavrinec, who travels with him on the men's tour, and has shown none of broom-cupboard Becker's weakness for female company.

Unlikely as it now seems, though, Federer, too, used to be a truculent, back-talking, racket-hurling tennis brat, more 'you cannot be serious?' McEnroe than the 'iceman' Borg, with whom he is often compared. As a junior player, he admits, he was 'like a crazy maniac. I had a very bad temper, I was very aggressive. It got to the point where my parents threatened to stop driving me to tournaments if I carried on like this. They were too embarrassed to be seen with me'.

The cause was frustration at the gap between his undoubted prowess and his inability to turn that into victory. 'I knew what I could do and failure made me mad. I had two voices inside me, the devil and the angel, I suppose, and one self couldn't believe how stupid the other one could be. "How could you miss that?" one voice would say. Then I would just explode. I would lose it. I was screaming and slamming rackets. It made me feel like an idiot.'

Sometimes, his father Robert bawled at him from the side of the court to quieten down. Occasionally, driving his son home after such behaviour, a disgusted Federer senior would say nothing for 90 minutes. Now, in an age of grunters and shriekers, Federer junior is one of the quietest players on court.

Born in Basle in August 1981, Federer first picked up a racket at the age of three at the club in nearby Münchenstein where his parents - Robert, a drug company salesman, and South-African-born mother Lynette - played. After hours hitting the ball off a wall, extraordinary skill soon became apparent. His consistency across tennis's various surfaces was honed by competing on clay in the summer and carpet courts in the winter.

Victory in the boys' singles at Wimbledon in 1998 seemed to signal the overdue conversion of promise into achievement. He turned pro, established himself on the ATP Tour, and in 2001 made the wider world take notice by beating Sampras over five sets in the second round in SW19, ending Wimbledon's king of kings run of 31 consecutive triumphs there. But still his record in tennis's four Grand Slams remained poor. The consensus was that he did not have the stamina, or the game, to withstand the rigours of a big two-week tournament.

It took tragedy to strike before Fededer realised his full talent. In the summer of 2002, Peter Carter, his first coach and the captain of Switzerland's Davis Cup team, was killed in a car crash in South Africa. 'He is the one person who truly opened my eyes to what I could achieve, because maybe I was not taking the game seriously enough at times.' Still just 20, Federer was deeply affected. He had never been to a funeral before, and he also felt guilty for having urged his mentor to undertake the trip. 'I lost my fire,' he says.

He found it again during a Davis Cup contest against Morocco, singlehandedly securing victory for his country. He began winning when it mattered. In 2003, he burst into tears of joy while being interviewed by Sue Barker after receiving the Wimbledon trophy - and then dedicated his victory to Carter. 'Whenever I win, particularly big matches, I'm thinking of him for sure.'

Faultlessly gracious, Federer also has supreme confidence, an iron will and singular outlook. He sacked his coach, didn't replace him and still won three of last year's Big Four. Unusually, he is not managed by one of the big sports talent agencies. Home remains Switzerland. He has met Aids sufferers and township children in South Africa through his own charity.

His mother is his agent, while Mirka, a former player who had to retire through injury, - arranges his media duties, which he always undertakes. During the last fortnight, she has washed the dishes and tidied up at their rented house in Wimbledon Village as usual. He is resolutely undomesticated, though last year she scored a minor victory by dragging him to the local Sainsbury's in a taxi to help get their weekly shopping.

Hewitt played well in his semi-final against the Swiss on Friday and still was helpless to withstand his opponent's masterclass of power, subtlety of touch and unerring positional sense. The bad news for Roddick is that Wimbledon is Federer's favourite tournament, and he desperately wants that third victory. After losing to him in the quarter-finals, Fernando Gonzalez of Chile said what everyone in the locker-room by now privately believes. '

Playing the best player in the world always brings out the best in me, but Roger is something completely different. In my opinion, he is unbeatable at Wimbledon; he does not have a single weakness.'

Roger Federer

DoB: 8 August, 1981 (Basle, Switzerland)

Girlfriend: Mirka Vavrinec (they met at the 2000 Olympics)

Hobbies: Golf, football, skiing, Playstation, music (AC/DC, Lenny Kravitz) and cards

Food: Tomatoes and mozzarella di buffala, gnocchi and gorgonzola, salad, cheese