When Roger Federer upset Sampras inthe 2001 championship, it marked a turning point for tennis as well as for theprodigiously gifted Swiss teenager. Federer attracts a devoted following amongtennis lovers whose soubriquet for him * TMF, or *The Mighty Federer* *reflects a widely held belief that he is the greatest player of all time.
The Swiss’s serene elegance,in contrast with the Spaniard’s near-bestial intensity, is like a clashbetween high classicism and turbulent romanticism. It puts one in mind of thegreatest Mozart symphonies, in which that tension between rationality andemotion speaks so eloquently of the human condition. Sport can, on rareoccasion, take on the same themes as the subtlest of art forms.
Och Wimbledon fyller en funktion för det brittiska samhälletssjälvbild:
Wimbledon is in many ways ametaphor for what Britain has become, a fast, hard, rich society that likes todress itself up in vague notions of fair play and nobility of spirit thatbelong to a bygone age.