Wimbledon: Roger Federer – The magic of the first game and point number 20,855

Roger Federer will traditionally open the Centre Court in Wimbledon on Monday. For the Swiss, it’s his ninth title on Church Road.

When Roger Federer walks into the Theater der Tennisträume on Monday afternoon at 1 pm local time, Wimbledon has already begun. On the outdoor courts, some matches may already have been decided, after all, there are no hours of patience exercises in lawn tennis, as there were at the French Open in Paris. But the world’s most famous Grand Slam tournament is only really opened when the ball flies on the sacred lawn of the Centre Court.

It is a unique privilege in the worldwide travelling circus, the privilege of the defending champion to play the first match on the tennis green. “It’s always a great feeling to be in the opening game. On the Centre Court, where I experienced my best moments as a player,” says Federer, who has a rendezvous with Serbian Dusan Lajovic in 2018, “it’s a downright sublime feeling. You walk on the lawn, your heart beats faster, your pulse goes up. This tingling never goes away.”

Federer fought for this extraordinary privilege eight times, the first time in 2003, at a time when his young career was experiencing its first major crisis. And in 2017, for the last time, 14 years later, now as a father of four – and as a comeback phenomenon, as a man who won practically every major tournament he played in the first seven months of the series.

But Wimbledon was still a bit bigger for Federer among the many great, extraordinary victories of the crazy 2017 season. Because when a season begins for the maestro, even after all these years on the tour, one guiding principle is still clear: if he wins Wimbledon, in his favourite role as an elegant lawn whisperer, then it is a good season. If he fails, the failed jump to the throne is difficult to compensate with other triumphs and trophies. “Wimbledon is the defining tournament for me,” says Federer.

Wimbledon is different, it has its own laws and rules. Everybody knows that, everybody knows how much they pay attention to the iron traditions in the All England Lawn Tennis Club. The predominantly white clothes, the renunciation of advertising, the Royal Box. And also the Centre Court, which will be completely untouched until Monday afternoon at 1 pm. At the French Open, the US Open and the Australian Open everyone, the stars and the little stars, also on the main square, play themselves warm, they get a feeling for the speed, for the ball bounce.

But in Wimbledon, where experience has shown that the Centre Court plays completely differently from most of the courts around it, only the protagonists of the premiere duel know where they stand with the pitch. Faster, slower, duller? The question also arises because the pace has changed again and again in recent years: Wimbledon became, in short, slower. While, for example, the sand courts in Paris were getting faster and faster.

Federer, the veteran of the Wimbledon openings, knows that since the installation of a mobile Centre Court roof, nothing will change at the obligatory start time at 1 pm. The Swiss man no longer remembers the annoying waiting hours in the rain, he practically always plays on the main square, also because international television stations want it that way. Federer means quota, Federer means value for money invested.

The first point Federer will play in the match against Lajovic is also his 20,855 point – since he first entered the tennis cathedral in southwest London as a professional in 1999. He’s been playing here for 20 years in a row, he’s racked up 3032 of his own winning strokes, hit 1285 aces and played 102 games. At first glance, the score of only 55 percent points won, 11,510 against 9,344, seems astonishing, but like hardly anywhere else, only a few decisive points are important in grass court tennis, the Big Points. And there Federer is the master of all classes.