Pressure is a privilege, Billie Jean King used to say. Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray, the only four men to have won Wimbledon in the past 19 years, have been more privileged than most. Yet, as each member of the fabled quartet has discovered, pressure comes in many forms. What happens when the old certainties begin to fade; when the body becomes fallible, or expectation assumes unprecedented dimensions? As Wimbledon begins, each member of the erstwhile Big Four must square up to his own unique challenges.
For the absent Nadal, the priority is to recharge body and mind. The Spaniard’s decision to skip the All England Club this year is indicative of the physical, mental and emotional toll of his semi-final defeat to Djokovic at the French Open. A 14th title in Paris would have taken Nadal’s grand slam tally to 21, one more than Federer and three ahead of Djokovic. Instead, he finds himself looking to the US Open for salvation in the knowledge that, should Djokovic claim a sixth Wimbledon title, the Serb will arrive in New York level with him and Federer on 20 slams.
Federer, who suffered an agonising defeat of his own against Djokovic in the Wimbledon final two years ago, twice coming within a point of a ninth title, will be eager to ensure that scenario does not materialise. Yet the Swiss, still struggling to recapture his best form after twice undergoing knee surgery last year, has problems of his own. Having pulled out of the French Open to protect his body, Federer failed to make the last eight on the grass courts of the Halle Open for the first time. He seemed genuinely shocked by his final-set capitulation against the talented young Canadian Felix Auger-Alliasime, and spoke afterwards of how his mindset had descended into uncharacteristic negativity as “the whole difficulty of the comeback got to me”.
“I had a mental moment where I was not happy about how things were going in the match,” reflected Federer during his pre-Wimbledon press briefing. “Things derailed mentally for me … there’s ways to lose and there’s a standard I set for myself, you know, how I go about things.
“It reminds me more of the junior times at the beginning of my career, where all of a sudden you just don’t see the positivity any more. I was maybe having higher expectations and maybe it’s also part of the comeback, very few fans … I don’t know what it was, to be honest.”
Uncertainty has rarely been a feature of Federer’s mental landscape, particularly in SW19, and the Swiss was at pains to play down the prospect of another meltdown over the course of the next fortnight. Equally, he will be 40 in August, and while his mind may well be strong enough to defy time indefinitely, his body is not. Change is in the air, and the pressure to make the most of what may be his final tilt at a ninth title will be immense. Federer spoke wistfully of how Covid protocols have changed the Wimbledon routines to which he has grown accustomed over the past 20 years. There will be no rented house to set up this year, no children running amok, no grocery shopping in Wimbledon Village; even survival to the second week is no longer a given.
“I think I’ve got to take the positives out of these last few weeks, that I’m actually here at Wimbledon right now and I have a chance,” said Federer, who will start his campaign against the 41st-ranked Adrian Mannarino of France. “I know if I get rolling and I get into the second week, which is the goal here right now, I get stronger and stronger as every match goes by. I believe it’s very much possible, so I come here feeling mentally strong.”
If thoughts of the finish line are beginning to impinge on Federer’s consciousness, Murray will know how he feels. The last time the Scot played Wimbledon, he was ranked No 1 in the world. Four years later, the champion of 2013 and 2016 returns as a wildcard with a metal hip, a ranking of 119, and a determination simply to make the most of every last moment he gets at the top level.
“It’s been something that I have done my whole life, so letting go of that obviously would be a difficult thing to do,” said Murray, who faces Nikoloz Basilashvili, the 24th seed, in the opening round. “I miss being on Centre Court and things like that, I miss the pressure of that and I’m looking forward to feeling that again. I think probably six, seven years ago, I didn’t fear that pressure, but it was something that I stressed quite a lot about, whereas when I reflect on the last few years it’s actually something that I’ve really missed, playing in front of a big crowd on Centre Court. That’s what tennis players, and tennis fans, want to do.
“There’s been times in my career where I’ve been anxious about that, but right now I’m looking forward to feeling that pressure. I’m not anxious about going out there to perform, I just want to go do it. There’s a number of things that I love about tennis. I also like the day-to-day routine of things, always trying to better yourself a little bit each day. There’s many things that go into it.”
As with Federer, Murray’s words were shot through with nostalgia. Such sentiments – a longing to return to the big stage, a yearning for the everyday routine of training – are the stock-in-trade of retired sports stars, not those still active at the top level. Pity, though, is the last thing Murray would want. Given a fair wind fitness-wise, he still believes he can duke it out with the best. The pressure, then, comes not from competing at a sport for which Murray clearly still harbours a deep-rooted love, but from the uncertainty of not knowing how his body will hold up when he does. His return from hip surgery has been a stop-start affair, with the groin injury he suffered in March merely the most recent in a string of setbacks, niggles and late withdrawals. Encouragingly, Murray seemed to be moving freely when he appeared at Queen’s Club last week, with ring-rust rather than any physical frailty the decisive factor in his straight-sets defeat to Matteo Berrettini. Only he will know how long he can continue to deal with conducting his tournament preparations on a knife-edge.
Djokovic, meanwhile, faces pressures of an entirely different order. He has made no secret of his ambition to complete a clean sweep of all four majors plus an Olympic gold medal – the elusive golden slam – and confidently proclaimed after his French Open victory that “everything is possible”. It would be an unprecedented achievement in the men’s game – only Steffi Graf has achieved the feat previously – and already the noise around him is deafening. Yet we have been here before. Five years ago, when he won the French Open for the first time to complete a career grand slam, Djokovic headed into a two-year tailspin that brought defeat to Sam Querrey at Wimbledon, turmoil in his private life and an elbow injury that eventually required surgery. He is acutely aware of the potential pitfalls this time around, but the scrutiny will be intense. It will be fascinating to see how he deals with it all, especially with the additional distraction of his controversial campaign to establish a players’ union, which has been gathering momentum over the past week. Having spoken bullishly after his victory at Roland Garros, proclaiming himself capable of beating “anybody on any surface”, Djokovic struck a more circumspect note during his pre-Wimbledon media briefing.
“The biggest challenge, the biggest task, is always how to be present and how to stay in the moment, regardless of the possibilities, the hypotheticals and various options that are out there,” said Djokovic. “There’s always something on the line for me, probably Roger and Rafa as well, when it comes to tennis history in the last couple of years. We’ve been very successful, particularly in slams, and of course I understand that people love to debate who is the greatest, who’s going to have the most titles. So you know, there’s always a lot going on off the tennis court. But once I’m on the court, I try to lock in and exclude all the distractions. I feel like, over the years, I have managed to develop the mechanism that allows me to do that.”
As Djokovic ventures into territory that not even his three greatest rivals have trodden, that focus will be needed more than ever.