Pat Rafter is watching TV in his rented house on the Sunshine Coast. He's trying to think of three simple words to describe himself. He doesn't like this sort of nonsense. "Focused", he says after 30 tense seconds. "Fair" he adds confidently. The TV blares in the background while the man the Australian tennis players call "Skunk" (not because he smells bad but because he has a natural streak of white hair in his ponytail) tries to think. The seconds go by, "Norma! Just normal," he finally says, pleased with his choice of words.He could have said "normal, normal, normal". the man who once described himself as a 'sack of crap' is a sports psychologist's nightmare. His laid back Queensland-style, I-don't-give-a-s---attitude is somewhere between endearing and infuriating. He says he's "never shown any signs of brilliance", whether he reaches number one in the world "really doesn't bother" him, it would be "nice" to win the Davis Cup some day, he has "no idea" why he plays so well but he "wouldn't mind" playing in the Sydney 2000 Olympics.
It seems Rafter will do and say almost anything to convince you that he is no one special and there are plenty of days when he wants the rest of the world to go away. But theres' no chance of that. At 26-year-old Pat Rafter is the first Australian tennis player to crack the top 10 world rankings since Pat Cash was number four in 1988. He shocked the ruthless and often bitchy tennis world by jumping from number 62 to 2 in 12 months in 1997 - the first Australian to do so since John Newcombe finished at number 2 in 1974.
Last year, he won the US Open for the second time in a row, silencing his critics and pocketing more than $1 million in prize money. Add to this an international award for being one of the fiarest athletes in the world and the votes that earned him a place as one of the "10 Sexiest Men Alive" according to People magazine in the US.
In short, Rafter is Australia's greatest hope for a world number 1 tennis champion since Newcombe grabbed the title briefly twenty-three years ago. But right now, in the middle of an extended break before the pressure of the Australian Open, Rafter doesn't want to think about tennis. He won't pick up a racquet for six weeks, preferring instead to go surfing and to listen to his favourite song, Offspring's "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)", Pretty normal stuff.
"I'm the most unfocused bloke in the world right now", he says just before Christmas. "But when I need to be, I can be very focused. When push comes to shove I will put everything to one side to concentrate on what I'm doing".
Rafter has a plan for 1999 but he won't reveal it. He will say it's as simple as improving on the previous year. "Last year it was very hard for me to improve on number two. To improve I had to be the number one player. That's pretty tough and it didn't happen. What I really want is to be in the top 10 year after year," he says.
Rafter had the chance to be the number one player in the world if he won the Paris Indoor Open in November last year. He lost to American Todd Martin in the third round. The trophy was there for him to take and he slipped. Lost concentration.
"It doesn't worry me at all, " he insists. "Being number one is not a huge goal of mine. It is a goal but it's not something to get too upset about, I thnk it upsets people like Pete Sampras more than it upsets me".
Rafter never takes his eyes off Sampras, the number one player in the world for almost seven uninterrupted years and the man Rafter has to beat. The 27-year-old Sampras will be looking to turn his form around at this year's Australian Open after losing to the unseeded Karol Kucera in the quarter finals last year. Rafter himself has never got past the third round in the Melbourne tournament. A fact that aggravates him. But some say this cuold be his year as Rafter is feeling a lot more confident, partly due to defeating Sampras twice in 1998 - once in the Cincinnati ATP final and then again in the US Open semi-final.
"Pat is definitely capable of winning this time, " says Leo Schlink, tennis correspondent for the News Limited group of newspapers. "Sampras will be there and he does step up his game when he plays Pat because he knows he's close and closing in on him."
Schlink, who has followed Rafter's game since 1993, says the young Queenslander's mental state is crucial to his performance. The guy has a tendency to crash. "His confidence is pivotal. When he's playing well, it's instinctual. When he's fretting over something, it's excruciating to watch because he's so close but he gets down on himself. He can't see the wood for the trees."
Champion player John McEnroe has also noticed how distracted Rafter can be on court. McEnroe was the first to call Rafter a "one-slam wonder" after he won the 1997 US Open but was forced to rethink when Rafter successfully defended the title against Mark Philippoussis last year.
"I didn't think he had the mental desire to do it because he's very popular and he cares about his friendships, and when you care about friends, you're not as mean as you need to be on court," McEnroe told the Sydney Morning Herald.
"But physically he's incredible. And I think it would be great for the sport because it shows that somebody who......faltered with injuries and bad luck, can rebound, and come back at what was considered a late age in tennis, 26, 27 and be the number one."
"He could be, potentially, the best player in the world".
Rafter is relaxed about McEnroe's earlier critical comments. "As soon as I heard it I thought, 'That's fine, maybe I am," I didn't know if I'd ever win anything again. It wasn't negative. I'd just won a Grand Slam, saying I'm a one-slam wonder is a lot better than saying I'm a no-slam wonder," he says, "But I'm glad I've silenced the critics and I'm a lot more confident now."
Rafter admits that his fierce serve and volley athletic game often depends on his moods and there's almost nothing he can do about it. All he knows is that when he wakes up feeling strong, no one in the world can beat him.
"My moods affect me greatly. I just try to keep myself as steady as I can. There are times when I'm not concentrating very well. Sometimes I just can't get that concentration and then I'll lose the game. Maybe desire and focus is part of that. Sometimes you just can't find it and other times you need to get mad at yourself. I'm still learning those sort of things," he says.
"I can be mad at myself more in practise than matches. I try to control it, I don't like people to think I'm a real brat but there are times when the racqet will fly and I'll spit the dummy. Whether's it's to do with waking up on the wrong side of the bed or if something really upsets me......if things on the outside happen and they are controllable then I will go out of my way to make sure they are controllable".
This is where the fairness kicks in. Part of Rafter's plan to keep everything under control is to employ half his family in the "Rafter Campaign". The seventh of nine children, he grew up mostly playing soccer in Mt Isa. The family moved to the Sunshine Coast when Rafter was eight. He dumped soccer for tennis because the competition on the Coast wasn't very strong. His elder brother Geoff, an aspiring tennis player, was one of Rafter's early coaches teaching him to serve while the younger brother dreamed of playing like his heroes "Cashy" and Bjorn Borg. But Rafter was a dud junior player because he was too small.
"I never showed any signs of brilliance until....oh, I don't think I have yet!" he says laughing. "No, I didn't really stand out for a long time. I didn't really get strong enough until I was 18 or 19. You need to be strong to play my game."
Now, Rafter's eldest brother Steve, is his manager and another brother Peter, often travels with him to keep his feet on the ground. Much of his total career prize money (US $7,135,364) has been shared with his eight siblings and his parents. Another $500 000 was donated to a childen's wing at the Royal Brisbane Hospital. But Rafter doesn't like to talk about it. Doesn't like people to go on about it.
Tennis correspondent Schlink still remember the day Rafter stunned the tennis crowd in Adelaide with his sense of fair play. During a pre-Australian Open tournament in January 1997, Rafter told the umpire that a ball was actually out and not in and virtually handed the match to his opponent Andrei Cherkasov.
"It's an incredibly ruthless and self-centred sport. Rafter gave Cherkasov the match point and then he lost the next point. That is so rare," says Schlink. "It was later known that Cherkasov said he wuoldn't have done the same thing if it was him".
Rafter brushes it off as a "pretty unique" situation. "I don't regret doing that. You get good calls and bad calls and we all have our sense of fairness".
It seems some have a stronger sense of fairness than others and this was recognised by the International Committee for Fair Play, an organisation that monitors all sports. Rafter was awarded a Diploma of Honour in 1997 by the ICFP for a gesture of fairness that cost him a victory.
The lead up to this year's Australian Open has been a whole new plan for Rafter. Cancel as many media and charity appointments as possible, rest up the injured knee, enjoy a short break in his new home, Bermuda, with his model girlfriend Lara Feltham before heading back for the family Christmas in Queensland.
"The past two years have been pretty tough mentally and physically for me", he says. "There is always a lot more pressure in Australia because I can't just do my own thing and relax. This time I've rented a house and I'm just keeping away from everyone. "I'm a lot fresher for it. I haven't hit quite as many balls and I've been really careful with my knee but I won't know how I'll go until I get down there and see what the surface and the balls are like. Obviously the quicker the better for me".
Think of Rafter. Preparing himself for the match, playing his favourite CDs - Pearl Jam, Ben Harper, Custard and Powderfinger. Trying to get his head steady. It's his dream. The Australian Open. To play like Cashy. Maybe this year....
"The Australian Open is one of the big four Grand Slams and it's just as hard as any other tournament," he says. "It's one I really want to win and I think I've got a good chance. I would love to have won that one instead of the US Open. It's a home town thing".
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