Rafter the Grafter (Patrick Rafter)

Member Name: hakkved

Product:	Patrick Rafter
Date:	20/10/01 (135 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: natural talent

Disadvantages: injuries, possible retirement

The only sport that comes a fairly distant second to my love of motorsport, is tennis. There can be no denying that summer is upon us when Wimbledon fever hits the tv screens! So it was with pleasure that my 2 favourite tennis players reached this year’s Wimbledon final. Having thankfully and finally got rid of the ‘British Hopes’, I was left in a dilemma as to who to support – Pat Rafter of Goran Ivanisevic.

No one can deny that Australian Pat Rafter is a popular choice in the tennis world with his rugged good looks (although these have diminished of late due to his lack of long flowing hair!!), laidback personality and of course his natural tennis playing ability.

Rafter became a professional tennis player in 1991 at the age of 20 and people started to take note of his talent during the ATP tour in 1993 and ’94 having beaten Pete Sampras and reaching the 4th round of the French Open.

1996 saw his promise heighten as he won the US Open Doubles Championship with fellow Aussie, Mark Philippoussis. For the next 2 years, the US Open tournament was extremely kind to Rafter. In 1997 he emerged victorious from a 4-set battle against Greg Rusedski to take his 1st Grand Slam title. Despite cruel accusations of being a ‘one-slam wonder’ by well-known tennis bigmouths such as John McEnroe, Rafter returned to the US the next year and successfully defended his crown in a final showdown of Scud Vs Skunk. (Scud being the nickname of Mark Philippoussis thanks to the sheer speed and force of his serve; and Skunk, the name attributed to Rafter because of the white streak of hair amongst the rest of his brown hair.) On reaching this achievement, Rafter had joined a list of greats – Edberg, McEnroe, Sampras, Connors and Lendl in taking back-to-back titles.

All this hard-grafting in 1998 paid off in 1999, as Rafter reached the top of the tennis mountain by becoming the World Number One, albeit o
nly for a week or so, but a huge achievement nonetheless. Having begun the 1990s with a lowly ranking of 751 in the world, he had become no. 1.

This same year Rafter won the Australian Open Doubles title with Jonas Bjorkman and reached the 3rd round of the singles championship. ’99 also saw his best performance at Wimbledon on reaching the semi-finals – however Andre Agassi proved to be too much on this occasion. Having said this, the Agassi Vs Rafter semi-final battles repeated themselves at Wimbledon for the next 2 years, and both these were thrillingly successful for Pat as he found himself facing the finals.

Unfortunately, both these matches ended up in Rafter taking the runners-up slot, in a 2000 defeat by Sampras and Goran Ivanisevic in 2001. But who could honestly deny Ivanisevic this much sought after and deserved crown – I certainly couldn’t – although the stress I suffered watching this final match was unbearable – almost as bad as watching my Formula 1 hero attempt to take a victory!!

Sadly, Pat Rafter’s tennis future now looks uncertain. Throughout his career, he has had more than his fair share of injuries with torn wrist cartilage, ankle dramas and shoulder problems. With hints that he might not appear at Wimbledon again or any other tournament in the near future, it looks like we may have seen the best of Rafter – but we can never overlook his natural all-round court playing abilities.

Throughout all his achievements, he always seems to have remained a very positive, laidback and genuinely proud Australian, having conquered the tennis world in all humbleness. And above all, he is a huge fan of Pearl Jam’s music – that’s gotta be a big plus for anyone :) !!

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