Patrick Rafter: The All Time Greatest Sportsman?

By Scoop Malinowski

Tennis can be a cruel sport sometimes. Most pro players are assassins on the court, trained from childhood to defeat the opponent as quickly and efficiently as possible. To get to the top of pro tennis, the emphasis is to win – to be ruthless and merciless. Kindness is usually saved for post match interviews and meet and greets. On the court it’s all business. It has to be that way. If you give an inch, the opponent will take a mile.

Over the years we have seen the most ruthless players achieve historic successes. But in the jungles of pro tennis, there are actually also some exceptions to the rule. One certain renowned player did not operate like most all the others. While he did win two Grand Slam titles, he also managed to show some astounding, unforgettable examples of good sportsmanship, which his opponents fondly remember still today.

Patrick Rafter, the kind-hearted Australian, who won two US Open titles in 1997 and 1998 did something to James Blake that Blake still appreciates to this day. I asked Blake about who some of this favorite players to watch are, when we did a Biofile interview at US Open in 2003.

Here is what James told me when I asked who he liked to watch in the WTA: “Women’s tennis? I can’t say I follow it that much. But maybe I did like watching Steffi Graf. Seemed like a really great person and someone that was going to be nice no matter what happened. A great champion. Another great champion was Patrick Rafter. He’s a class act, someone I admire a lot. I played him two years ago (2001) in (3rd round at) Cincinnati (lost 7-6 (9-7), 6-2 after defeating Arnaud Clement and Julien Boutter). After the match, he was telling me, ‘You could have beaten me today. You could beat me on any given day. It’s just that maybe you didn’t believe you could.’ For him to say that to me…he didn’t need to. He could have just said he played horribly. He was worrying about playing the rest of the tournament, he had a million friends in the locker room, not like he needed one more. He was just helping out a kid that was struggling with his confidence. He really helped me a lot that day. Until then I didn’t feel that I belonged on the ATP Tour at all. After that, I started thinking, Maybe he’s right, maybe I do belong out here. Now I realize I can play with those guys. Patrick really made a difference in my career.”

Another story I heard about Rafter’s sportsmanship involved an off the court decision which proved completely contrary to how the vast majority of other elite ATP pros conduct business. Rafter was offered a six-figure appearance fee to play in an event, just like another Grand Slam champion who was also in the draw. The other famous Hall of Fame champion lost in the first round and took his appearance money and flew back home. Rafter played and lost early in the tournament. When tournament officials attempted to pay Rafter his six-figure appearance fee, Rafter declined to take it, explaining that he didn’t feel he played well enough to accept the money. Rafter did not take the money, he turned down a six-figure check because he didn’t perform to personal standards. A former player told me this story and another ATP insider later confirmed it.

The third example of Patrick Rafter’s extraordinary sportsmanship came to me last week when I was doing a Biofile interview with former Russian top 13 player and two-time winner of the Kremlin Cup, Andrei Cherkasov. I asked Cherkasov to share who were the “funniest players encountered” and he revealed this answer…

“I was talking to my friend from Germany and he sent me a video of when Patrick Rafter played Goran Ivanisevic in the finals of Wimbledon. They showed it on Italian television. So neither of us speaks Italian. But I understood something they said about how nice Rafter is as a human. When I played him in Adelaide in Australia I never forget that it was a point when he hits the volley long. And the linesman called it in…it was in Australia of course [smiles]. And I said, I protested. And Rafter turned around to the chair umpire and said the ball was out. So instead of set point and serving for the set – 9-8 set point for him – it was 9-8 and match point for me in the second set. And then I won the next point and then I won the match. I don’t remember in my career an opponent doing something like this. And it was an important match for him, at his home in Adelaide, on the center court and on TV. And he did this. It was a great match. We played extremely well. What he did is like…that never happened to me before or after.”

If there ever was a finer, more honorable sportsman in pro tennis than Patrick Rafter, if anyone can name him or her, please do…

Addendum: For the second year in a row after winning the US Open (in 1997 and 1998), Rafter donated a sizable amount of his US Open prize money – $180,000 – to charity (children’s hospital).

Australia · Patrick Rafter

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