A privileged, well-drawn biography of Swiss tennis great Roger Federer, highlighting the once-temperamental teenager’s transformation to a paragon of elegance as well as his rivalries with Raphael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.

Federer uniquely directed a long-lived, peripatetic career, managing business decisions (with his wife’s help) and leading the player union’s welfare and also promotional activities. He had chosen tennis over soccer for the promise of superior individual control of affair (i.e., less dependency on team and third-party management). The untimely passing of early coach Peter Carter, whom he had somewhat unsentimentally released, was a turning point.
Consistency of preparation was key to his game, and to a career largely free of major injury. Federer mastered ‘joindre l’utile a l’agreable, the conjoining of the necessary with the interesting / engaging. In his late teens, he briefly retained sed a performance psychologist prior to his breakthrough wins, which sits uneasily with his individualism.

Federer’s game is most comparable to Sampras; but the prior generation was far less likely to socialize together, and Federer enjoyed the demanding travel schedule. The arrival of Nadal, whose forte was the French clay and style more fiery and gritty, made for a rivalry that lifted both players. Djokovic, the latecomer, was more the master technician, always searching for a better approach. Federer’s claim to primes inter pares is his success at Wimbledon, the most elegant of the Grand Slam tournaments.

Federer piled up major tournament wins before the other two arrived, and can be criticized for collapsing in Slam finals. He never defeated both Nadal and Djokovic in a Grand Slam tournament.

Refreshingly free of hyperbole, Clarey’s sketch abounds with mostly unobtrusive personal interjections and includes a fair amount of tennis history. One wonders whether the introduction of the Hawkeye technology facilitated Federer’s grace?