THE NATURAL inclination is to root for the underdog - Susan Boyle, the American soccer team, anybody who plays against the Yankees. So why is Roger Federer someone whom tennis fans root for with such ardor? He’s not only the player of the decade, but if he wins this week’s Wimbledon title he’ll be all but unanimously declared the player of all time. Hasn’t he won enough?
Not for me. There’s nothing I’d like to see more than his passing the record he shares with quintessential nice guy Pete Sampras for most major titles in history Sunday.
Skill is only part of it. Rod Laver had the most complete game modern tennis had seen, but Federer is even better. He serves harder and runs faster, even if Laver’s ground strokes were equal. And no one is more beautiful to watch than Federer.
It isn’t just that Federer is the Joe DiMaggio of tennis; it’s that he’s the Miles Davis of tennis. Watching Federer in action is like watching Davis in concert - you feel as if you’re being given a lesson in how to live a life as well as how to swing a racket or play a trumpet. If Miles was responsible for the birth of the cool in jazz, Roger’s responsible for the rebirth of the cool in tennis.
Not that other players are likely to follow suit. The tennis world belongs to the grunters and groaners, pouters like Andy Murray who look like they’ve just come from the proctologist’s office, or clowns with backward caps like former number one Lleyton Hewitt. The only player who can come close to Federer on style points is the guy who’s as hot as Federer is cool - Rafael Nadal, who looks as if he’s spent his whole life in a gym and whose absence from Wimbledon may be the result of pushing his body too hard. (I could do without Federer’s gold-leaf warm-up suit, but if that’s what it takes to make him so comfortable in his body, then “Go, Ro-jerrr’’ as they chanted in Paris.)
Federer seems like the complete person as well as the complete player, urging himself on bilingually (“Allez!’’) or weeping openly in times of joy or sorrow. Even his wife, to judge from watching her in the stands, seems like a real person instead of a supermodel from another planet.
The waterworks, though, aren’t typical of the way he conducts himself on the court, where he rarely resorts to the fist-pumping, boorish histrionics of other athletes. Frankly, I’ve always preferred the cool guys and gals over the hot bloods - Arthur Ashe over Jimmy Connors, the Australian men and women of the ’60s and ’70s over anybody except Ashe.
But no athlete has been as fun to watch as Federer, running the baseline and hitting a ball seemingly out of reach for a perfect cross-court winner, serving with pin-point accuracy, disguising his shot till the last possible moment, and saving the best for clutch moments.
That last quality seemed to desert him the last year or so when it was Nadal, Novak Djokovic, or Murray who would play the big points better.
Federer, though, seems to have returned to peak form after beating Nadal in Madrid, winning the French Open for the first time, and playing masterfully at Wimbledon this week. He reached the semifinals yesterday with a straight-set win over Ivo Karlovic, and will next play Tommy Haas, who upset fourth-seeded Djokovic.
And with that play he’s again not only a poster boy for how to play tennis, but how to carry oneself in life. It’s not only a matter of grace under pressure, but brains over brawn, agility over ferocity, elegance and sophistication over coarseness and churlishness.
With apologies to Sinatra, it’s the way he wears his headband. All in all, one pretty cool package.
Freelance writer Ed Siegel is former theater and television critic for the Globe. 
