FORMER Australian wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist has revealed Roger Federer’s coach once used him and fast bowler Jason Gillespie to help the Swiss win a grand slam final, and they didn’t even know.

Federer is fresh from winning his eighth Wimbledon title — the 19th grand slam crown of his career — courtesy of a straight sets win over Marin Cilic. After a lengthy injury lay-off the 35-year-old has now claimed the biggest prize at two majors this year following his defeat of Rafael Nadal in the Australian Open final in January.

Federer is coolness under pressure personified, and his temperament as well as his tennis has propelled him to the top of the sport and kept him there. But that doesn’t mean he’s never nervous.

He won Wimbledon in 2003 and 2004 but still the butterflies were in his stomach when he lined up to face Andy Roddick in the final of the 2005 tournament, a match he won 6-3 6-4 7-6.

“I was very fortunate in 2005 we were over there for an unsuccessful Ashes campaign and we got to go to Wimbledon,” Gilchrist said on Fox Sports program The Back Page.

“At about 20-to-two on Wimbledon finals day, Federer was taking on Andy Roddick and I was standing with Jason Gillespie and Tony Roche walked past who was coaching Federer at the time. He said, ‘Boys do you want to come and meet Roger?’ and we said, ‘God yeah.’

media_camera Roger Federer. media_camera Adam Gilchrist.

“We went down into the locker room — there was no one else in there except for Roger Federer. We had small talk and I said, ‘Mate, do you ever get nervous? You’ve been in this situation a few times, do you get nervous?’ He goes, ‘Yeah, just a little bit before the game.’

“And I looked at the clock and it was seven minutes to two and they’re hitting off at two o’clock. I went, ‘Mate, I don’t want to frighten you but you better start getting nervous.’”

But rather than being an unwelcome intrusion in the minutes before the pinnacle of a tennis player’s career, Gilchrist and Gillespie’s appearance was all part of a plan.

“That was part of what Tony (Roche) said later on is that he (Federer) does get a bit more nervous than he lets on and he wanted to get someone down there to distract him,” Gilchrist said.

“So we did our best distraction and he nailed Roddick in three sets, it was unbelievable.”

LARA’S PERFECT RESPONSE TO SYMONDS’ BENDER

media_camera Andrew Symonds wasn’t feeling so great after a big night out in 2005.

Federer admitted he had a giant hangover when he fronted the press after celebrating his win over Cilic at the All England Club, and the boozy theme in sports continued when it was revealed NSW Origin players Josh Dugan and Blake Ferguson had been drinking on their day off during the Blues’ camp ahead of Origin III.

Former Australian all-rounder Andrew Symonds knows what it’s like to get on the beers a bit too close to game day, being left out of Australia’s one-day team when he turned up under the weather to a game against Bangladesh in Cardiff in 2005.

Bangladesh won that game and the story of Symonds’ big night out has become embedded in Australian cricket folklore. And Gilchrist has revealed the big hitter was forced to cop a sledge from the cricketer he looked up to most — West Indian legend Brian Lara.

“The footnote to that was Andrew Symonds admired Brian Lara, and no one liked to talk too much about that incident around Symmo for a while,” Gilchrist said.

“But in a Test match against Brian Lara he asked if Brian would sign his shirt. And Symmo looked up to him and Brian didn’t know what to write, he wanted to write something clever like all people when they write an autograph.

“So he went scribble, scribble, scribble and gave the shirt back to Symmo and it said, ‘Symmo, I love Cardiff too.’”

Originally published as Gilly’s unwitting role in Federer triumph