dpHe grew up in Switzerland and served as a ball boy at 13 years old at the Swiss Indoor championships. Though he had loved tennis long before then, Federer said he will always see the game through that boy’s eyes.
“I’ll never forget how the game looked from there and how it felt,” he said. “Standing so close to the players, feeding them the ball, handing them a towel, seeing them sweat, watching them fight it out, figure it out, the adversity, the intensity.”
Introduced by his wife, Mirka, who broke the crowd when she reminded one and all that when they met at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 her future husband had zero ATP titles to his name.
“So, I’ve been there for all 103,” she said.
A winner of 20 Grand Slam singles titles — only Novak Djokovic (24) and his longtime rival Rafael Nadal (22) have more — Federer took his place among the all-time greats of the game as an overflow crowd of admirers looked on as the sun set on a picture-perfect day.
A dominant player with a ferocious forehand and brilliant onehanded backhand, Federer was graceful, elegant, and athletic on the court.
He learned to play with his father’s heavy wooden racket, which forced him to hit both forehands and backhands using both hands.
“Who knew I was going to become a single-handed player? Any single-handed players left out there?” he asked the crowd.
Federer’s Hall of Fame résumé is unquestioned.
He is one of nine men to cop a career Grand Slam (Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, and US Open) and one of just four to accomplish the feat on three surfaces — hardcourt, grass, and clay.
He is the only player to win three Grand Slams at least five times (Australian, Wimbledon, and US Open).
Federer, who spent 310 weeks — and a record 237 straight — as the world’s No. 1-ranked player, is the only player to capture two different Grand Slams five straight times. He won Wimbledon every year from 2003-07 and the US Open from 2004-08.
In one stretch between 2005-10, Federer earned a berth in 18 of 19 Grand Slam finals.
In addition to his family, Federer thanked everyone in what he called the “ecosystem of tennis,” including the ball kids, coaches, linesmen, and his opponents for helping him reach the pinnacle of the sport.
He also thanked the Hall of Fame, noting that there are more than 25,000 artifacts on the grounds.
“And now, I guess, I’m one of them, too,” he said to raucous laughter.
Also inducted was Mary Carillo, a terrific player whose career was cut short by balky knees. She then embarked on a broadcasting career and became one of the preeminent television commentators of her time and a pioneer for women in the booth.
Introduced by fellow Hall of Famer Billie Jean King, her friend of more than 50 years, Carillo was adept at taking viewers inside a player’s mind-set during critical points of a match. She also knew when to tell producers to “cut my mike” and let the action tell the story.
She played professionally from 1977-80 and though she never won a Grand Slam singles title, she did win the 1977 French Open mixed doubles title with fellow lefthander — and childhood friend from Queens — John McEnroe.
Carillo borrowed the words of German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer when asked to describe both McEnroe, who was inducted in 1999 and was among the many legends who walked the red carpet Saturday, and her classmate, Federer.
“What Schopenhauer wrote is, ‘Talent hits a target that no one else can hit. Genius hits a target that no one else can see,’ ” Carillo said. “And that to me, I mean, we’ve all been trying to describe Roger Federer for about 20 years now, that’s as close as I can come.”
Jim McBride can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @globejimmcbride.
