Like most people in Gstaad I was rooting for Roger, and not only for the obvious reasons of his superior talent. What Federer brought back to the game after the horrors of McEnroe's years was civility and good sportsmanship. Pete Sampras, a Greek-American did dominate the game for about seven years in between the vulgar American and the gentle Swiss, but his lack of charisma was deadly. Watching Sampras play with his mouth half open was like being in a circus and looking at the apes performing tricks. Agassi was a great crowd pleaser, but only from afar. I know his first wife, Brooke Shields, a very nice woman whose father was a great buddy of mine. From up close Agassi is no hero. But back to Roger Federer.

One week before his defeat I wrote in my Spectator column that he would not win in Melbourne. The reason for this is very simple. Watching him win an early match I thought I noticed a slight, mind you very slight, lack of desire. He was playing freely, as he was winning easily, but he was in a bit of a hurry. Hurrying one's shots means only one thing. One wants to get off the court as quickly as possible. But modern tennis, alas, is all about slugging it out for four hours or more. It is trench warfare, or better yet, a war of attrition. The man I wrote that would beat Roger was Rafael Nadal, but as it turned out it was the Serb Novak Djokovic. After 12 Grand Slam wins, the great Roger is no longer as hungry as he once was. Perhaps he thinks he is, but he would not be human if he had not lost some desire. The greatest all-rounder, Bjorn Borg, only lasted five years at the very top, as did Sampras. Back in my day, my friend and hitting partner Roy Emerson could remain close to twenty years on top - and win 12 grand slams - only because he played far fewer tournaments than they do now.

Above, Ana Ivanovic, currently the women's world number 2 and capturing the imagination of the tennis world, not to mention Taki. Read on...

Photo: anaivanovic.com

I remember when I got on the tennis circuit back in 1956. My first tournament was - believe it or not - Gstaad and the Swiss Championships as they were then called. I was travelling with Yaroslav Drobny, Wimbledon champion in 1954, and although the Greek Davis Cup team stayed at the Victoria, I checked into the Palace becoming rather unpopular with my fellow Greeks. Drobny was flirting with Hedy Mullener at the time, and Hedy watched as old Drob won the tournament beating Neal Fraser in the semis and Ashley Cooper in the final. I passed my first round against a Swiss player and lost to Cooper the next round. Gstaad was simply divine back then. Two years later I played as badly as it is possible to do, and lost love and love, I believe, to Pierre Darmon, the French numero uno. That was the year that the divine Brazilian girl Maria Bueno first arrived on the tennis circuit. Maria and I used to hit together every day in the Palace courts, but there was no romance. She had a great pair of legs but was quite homely. Then something awful happened. She went to bed with a Chilean player, Patricio Apey, and was so traumatised, she turned gay almost instantly. The Brazilians erected a statue of Maria in San Paulo after her third Wimbledon crown. When I attended a brief ceremony in London for her, she laughingly told me that perhaps if we had done something together before Apey things would have turned out differently. (She was obviously joking, but Patricio Apey is still known among us old timers as the man responsible for turning Maria off men.)

Players were good friends back then. We travelled together, trained together, played poker at night and chased women together. There were no managers, no coaches, no trainers, no fitness doctors, no personal assistants. Everyone was quite poor except for Philippe Washer, the greatest Belgian male player of all time, and perhaps yours truly. Washer had seduced the prettiest girl on the circuit after the war, Gorgeous Gussie Moran, as the British tabloids had dubbed her, and Gussie was crazy about him but it was no go. Philippe believed in one-night stands only, so Gussie went back home to America quite weepy. I tried to console her in New York after a practice, but it was no go. She was always thinking of bloody Philippe.

Except for Gussie, female players were not exactly lookers back then. Now they are. The most beautiful player in the history of tennis is Ana Ivanovic, the Serb finalist who lost to the Russian Maria Sharapova. The six foot two Sharapova is a hell of a player but uses her shrieks for gamesmanship. Her father, who looks straight out of central casting as a Russian Mafioso, is always giving signs, which is illegal but not always enforced by referees. What would help the game now would be the following. No more grunting allowed. Some of the hardest hitters of the game, players like Lew Hoad, Pancho Gonzales and Roy Emerson did not need to grunt in order to hit the cover off the ball. No more than three bounces before serving. Nadal and Djokovic bounce it as many as 16 times, and they do it in order for their opponent to lose concentration while waiting for the serve. Two bounces should be the rule. Make the grass courts of Wimbledon faster, the way they used to be, in order to encourage players to venture to the net. The French have speeded up their clay courts in Roland Garros, so the Brits should follow suit. The Americans and Australians ditto. The game is now too predictable, everyone staying on the baseline and hitting back and forth.

The only time I was not bored watching the Australian Open was when Ana was on court. The Serbian siren has green-grey eyes, high Slavic cheekbones, and a figure to die for. She is also feminine and very nice, according to my spies. In fact she's so lovely I am thinking of going back on the circuit age 71. You never know. She might have a grandfather fetish...

Taki Theodoracopulos, better known as Taki, is a journalist and writer, living in Gstaad, London, and New York. His column ‘High Life’ has appeared in The Spectator for the past 25 years, and he has also written for National Review, the London Sunday Times, Esquire, Vanity Fair, the New York Press, and Quest Magazine, among others. In 2002 Taki founded The American Conservative magazine with Pat Buchanan and Scott McConnell. He is also publisher of the British magazine Right Now! and has been writing for GstaadLife since its first season in 2003/4. More of his musings can be found at www.gstaadlife.com/taki and on his own website at www.takimag.com.