Roger Federer at Wimbledon by Hazel Soan *
When the ancient Greeks sculpted the victors of an Olympic event, the goal was to produce not the athlete itself but the perfect, idealized image of the athlete, the discus throw imagined as god-like, eternal. In Myron’s Discus Thrower, the key to all this potential power is in the core, the legs. How they twist and turn in perfect balance, the entire musculoskeletal system a flexible chain. As in Myron’s Discus Thrower, so Roger Federer on every shot. Tennis not how it’s played, but how we imagine the gods might play it. The serve, the forehand, the one-handed backhand drive. Grace, beauty, fluidity, perfection. Statistics can be boring: Most grand slams singles titles, most weeks at #1, etc., etc., etc. . . . How about that shot in the heat of a point that set Federer apart from all the others: the mid-court ball which he attacks with his forehand, the footwork almost invisible light tiny dancer quick floating sudden whip of the forehand into one of the opponent’s corners to dramatically change the point. I could go on and on. Watch his second serve in slow motion. How high he gets off the ground, the perfect balance of the legs, the racquet slicing across the ball at an extreme but elegant angle. Let’s just put up a sculpture in the public square. Better yet, maybe a series of ten sculptures for ten different shots: the flick backhand pass, the scissors kick overhead, the short slice backhand crosscourt . . . . Might even include a tweener—no one hit it better. Is there a sculptor alive who could do Federer justice? Could Myron?
“Roger Federer and Myron’s Discus Thrower” was first published in Cagibi
* About the Artist
The British artist Hazel Soan is widely recognized for her expertise in the art of watercolor. Her work is represented in private and public collections worldwide and she has held numerous solo exhibitions, primarily in the UK and Africa, her two studio bases. Popular for her television role as an art expert on Channel 4’s Watercolour Challenge, Hazel Sloan is also the author of more than 15 books and is a regular contributor to The Artist magazine. You can see her work and learn more about Hazel on her website. You can also follow her work on Instagram.
On Painting Roger Federer (From Hazel Soan’s Facebook Post: July 14 2019, London)
Watching Wimbledon today - breathtaking tennis. Last year I was lucky enough to see Roger Federer play at Wimbledon early in the tournament. This week I couldn’t do anything else but paint this watercolour of him from one of my photos of the match last year. To get his likeness I finished it during the Semifinal against Nadal on Friday, holding it up against the TV until I recognised the figure in the screen had materialised on my paper. Love that moment of recognition in portrait painting.
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