He'd told them so. A month ago, when some nobody named Albert Costa had dumped him out of the first round of the 1997 Australian Open - his national championship, for goodness' sake - Patrick Rafter had dolefully sought out his Davis Cup coach, Tony Roche, and captain, John Newcombe, to inform them he was through as a viable tennis force.

His ranking had nosedived 41 places, from 21st to 62d, in the past two years, and now had come the ultimate ignominy. ''I don't have the ability to be a top 20 player,'' he'd moaned to Roche and Newcombe.

This had been news to them. They'd looked at him as if he were bloody crazy. ''You're [expletive] kidding me,'' Newcombe had said.

Well, what did they think now? Here he was in a real mess, two sets down to France's Cedric Pioline in their opening Davis Cup singles match, disgracing himself in his homeland yet again, just as he knew he would.

But what was this? Suddenly, his serves started clicking. His relentless rushes to the net began yielding points. He grabbed a set, then two, and before he realized it, he'd somehow won the match, 6-4 in the fifth.

On the sidelines, Newcombe and Roche looked at one another and smiled wryly.

They'd told him so.

A charitable sort He couldn't wait to tell him. Newcombe was standing at center court in Flushing Meadow, preparing to interview the 1997 US Open champion for Australian television on this September evening, and as they cut away to a commercial before the first question, the champion relayed a breathless bulletin to Newcombe.

''I want to give all my prize money to charity,'' Rafter said, the first words out of his mouth since he'd beaten Greg Rusedski for the title. ''The whole $650,000 to the Starlight Foundation.''

Newcombe, a board member of the organization that grants wishes to chronically ill children, again looked at Rafter as if he'd gone bonkers.

''That's a little much,'' he said.

Oh, all right. Rafter reluctantly agreed to compromise. By the time they came back on the air, he and Newcombe had settled on a $300,000 donation.

A regular guy Through it all, through the wrenching self-doubts and the rapturous triumphs, including a second straight US crown last September and the No. 2 world ranking, one thing about Rafter has remained constant.

His samurai hairdo notwithstanding, he just wants to be a regular bloke.

He is a delightful anachronism, spiritual descendant of those swashbuckling Aussies in the glory days of the '50s through the early '70s - Newcombe and Roche and Rod Laver and Fred Stolle and Roy Emerson - who'd try to kill you on the court, then insist that you join them for a Foster's, mate.

''We've had some pretty good celebration parties,'' laughs Newcombe, who will call upon Rafter in singles when Australia faces the United States in a Davis Cup quarterfinal at Longwood July 16-18. ''Pat isn't like some of the elite players. He hangs out with guys ranked 200th, 250th, because they're his pals. He doesn't care if they're top players.''

It's no accident. Newcombe realizes that it's not natural for tennis stars to remain natural, and he applauds Rafter's efforts along those lines.

''He keeps a laid-back attitude,'' says Newcombe. ''He's really trying hard to make sure it all doesn't change him as a person, that he's going to come out of this in the end not changed in character or personality.''

Rafter, 28, is humbled by the mere mention of his name in any context with the vintage Aussies.

''Having the role models and a tradition like the Aussies had, you know, it's such a great thing to look up to,'' he says. ''They were big icons back in Australia. They went out there and they tried their best, but at the end of the day, they are regular people and they realized that all we're doing is playing a sport and we shouldn't be looked at any differently than just that.''

Playing for his country is one way Rafter expresses his camaraderie. It's a given on his personal calendar. Each October, when he maps out the next year's activities, he has two priorities: the Grand Slam events and the Davis Cup.

''The Cup has been good for Pat,'' says Newcombe, ''and Pat has been good for the Cup.''

That's not surprising. He's always been a team player. He really didn't have a choice.

Family of influence
Jim Rafter owns a string of fish shops, a fortuitous enterprise, because he needed much of the inventory just to feed his family. He and his wife, Jocelyn, raised six boys and three girls in Mount Isa, Queensland, the Australian outback. Solidarity and cooperation were essential for survival to Patrick, the fourth-youngest son and third-youngest child.

''Think about it,'' says Newcombe. ''A family that size, you've got to learn how to get along.''

As a matter of fact, it's the largest brood to produce an ATP player, and its influence on Patrick is still evident.

He acquired his charitable inclination from watching Jim, by no means a rich man, put money in the poor box at church each Sunday and hearing his father's gospel that one should feel obligated to help those less fortunate.

Jim also taught him to play tennis at the age of 5, bringing him along to the courts with the three older boys.

Pat was something of a late bloomer by tennis standards, beating the bushes of the Challenger circuit through his teens and not making an impact among the big boys until age 22, when he won his first ATP singles and doubles titles.

When he got a bit full of himself, his family put a quick end to it.

''I started becoming a little bit affected by it,'' he says, ''and they pulled me back very quickly. It's a bit difficult when people always want attention and things to put things in perspective, because all you want to be is just a normal person, so [they've helped].''

There wasn't much to swell his head, just his ranking, in the next two years until the turnaround match against Pioline. Its lasting significance was that it illustrated Roche and Newcombe's staunch belief in him.

''It's probably nice having Tony and me around,'' says Newcombe, ''because he knows we're not there to be seen, we're there for the right reasons.''

Never was that more evident than in the tie against France.

''It wasn't just coming back and winning that match,'' says Rafter, ''it was also these guys having the faith in me to go out and do the job, which made me feel really good within myself. I hadn't that much confidence and we went into a big tie, and that felt really good, to be one of the guys on the court playing.''

He lost his final match in that series to Arnaud Boetsch, but by then, Australia had clinched a 4-1 victory and Rafter had been galvanized.

''He found that something down there,'' says Newcombe, clutching his stomach. ''That fire in his belly.''

Now there's only one thing he's looking for.

Looking out for No. 1
As much as Rafter desires to blend in, there's an area in which he wants to stand out from the crowd. His goal is the No. 1 world ranking, which would have seemed a delusion two years ago but now is well within his grasp.

In fact, he's come close several times. A victory in the Italian Open in May would have done the trick. But he lost a four-set final to Gustavo Kuerten. At Halle, Germany, less than two weeks before Wimbledon, all he needed to do was beat No. 33 Jan Siemerink in the second round to supplant Pete Sampras atop the ATP computer list.

He lost a third-set tiebreaker, 19-17. All that effort for naught.

Thus, he arrived at Wimbledon still ranked second, which may have been a blessing in disguise since he didn't come to London as the main target. But it was clear he would have welcomed the burden.

''[The desire] is always going to be there,'' he said after his second-round victory over Jonas Bjorkman. ''You're going to go on the court with a thought that `If I win this next match, I could be No. 1' or `I will be No. 1.' I mean, that's going to be there. So I think you've got to face the fact that it is going to be there and you've got to deal with it the best way you can. I'd like to be No. 1, no doubt about it.''

Yet he willingly jeopardized that quest by continuing to play doubles withBjorkman even after rain forced the schedule to be compressed in the second week. ''I made a commitment,'' he said simply, though he finally withdrew  from the doubles - with Bjorkman's blessing - on the eve of his semifinal against Andre Agassi, with No. 1 going to the winner. An exhausted Rafter lost in straight sets.

Newcombe believes that for a while, Rafter wanted the No. 1 distinction entirely too much, that it preoccupied him as he struggled through the early part of the season for the second straight year.

He points to some other mitigating factors as well. Rafter surprised the world, especially his country, by winning the '97 Open, and when he returned to Australia - suddenly a big icon like his revered predecessors - he was smothered in demands and requests for his time, his presence at this charity dinner or that TV interview. Typically, he satisfied all of them, and as a
result, Newcombe believes he was ill prepared for the start of the 1998 tour.

''Everyone wanted a piece of him,'' says Newcombe. ''I think it drained him.''

After his second Open triumph, Rafter developed a knee problem and wasn't in competitive shape when 1999 began. Once again, Davis Cup was the elixir.

''He didn't start firing until Zimbabwe in April,'' says Newcombe. ''We had 10 days to prepare, and after four days, you could see he was back.''

Still, the captain believed Rafter's mind-set was stuck on No. 1. And as always, he was eager to impart advice.

''I tell him not to get caught up in the hullabaloo about No. 1,'' says Newcombe. ''I told him just to play, `Do your best, win some Grand Slams, and stop worrying about the big picture.' I think he was much better off being seeded No. 2 [at Wimbledon] because he didn't need the added pressure.''

Then Newcombe proceeds to supply some. He's already projected the career track for Rafter.

''I think he'll win a Wimbledon, an Australian, maybe another US Open,'' says Newcombe. ''I think that's his maximum - five Grand Slams - because remember, he didn't win his first until relatively late [age 25]. I think he'll peak at the end of the year, be in and out of No. 1 for the next two years.''

Advised that Newcombe expects him to reach the top before the millennium, Rafter rolls his eyes, shakes his head, and says with mock exasperation, ''My God.''

He ought to pay attention. Newcombe has been right about him before, much to Rafter's relief.

This story ran on page E01 of the Boston Globe on 07/09/99.
© Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.