Strangely I find myself very by intrigued by my new-found appreciation for Andy Roddick, a thought that I by all rights never should have had, but the world is a crazy place and so, doffing my cap to said craziness, I will leave Andy for the time being and look instead at what yesterdays Wimbledon match did for my opinion of Roger Federer.
My opinion of Roger Federer... Have I ever had a higher opinion of any other public figure? Of all the human shaped stars in the sky, none shine brighter for me than Roger's. For years now he has stood Herculean and indomitable amongst the planets and nebulae and seven foot power forwards of our devotional sports galaxy, a figure too large for the relative obscurity of his sphere and too bright to be missed by even those who wouldn't normally see the world of tennis through a telescope. Where the majority of tennis players wink out before stargazers have a chance to wonder if they're even a trick of the light, Roger Federer blazes in the empyrean field of professional sports like a distant sun, and his presence commands the same sort of attention as a Lebron James or Tiger Woods.
Or so I like to tell myself. I'm not so delusional as to think that Roger draws as much attention, renown, or worship from all corners as somebody like Lebron or Tiger or Tom Brady, but I do know that of all the athletes I've watched I've only had one idol, and he comes from Switzerland. No other athlete inspires the sort of undying, unconditional, boundless love from me that Roger does, to no other athlete do I assign the same sort of unshakable loyalty, and given the choice of watching any single athlete in the world play up close, I would hands down in the blink of an eye without hesitation say Roger Federer, Centre Court, Wimbledon and wipe my hands of this world. Roger is a god to me.
But why, you ask? The answer is simple but gets more complicated: he plays a game I love, a game I hate, a game I didn't quite grow up with but grew into, a game that defined me and defines my starkest sports memories, with an unearthly beauty that is shoddy misdirection for sheer ruthless destruction. I admit that I love dominance, I love power, I crave the strength contained in competitive annihilation, and for years Roger stood on one side of tennis courts and banished opponents from his presence with a game that was simply undeniable and entirely beyond reproach. He was an archetype more than a human, an avatar, an earthly manifestation of a Platonic ideal rather than a fellow creature of blood and bones and dirt. He was so much better than EVERYONE that I looked forward to his matches not to cheer him in overcoming challenges but to bear witness to him incinerating his opponents (who were themselves unimaginably good tennis players) like dry bundles of straw before a wind of flame. He was a magician, a sage, a hero, and tennis was his Art. Maybe I've made my point already, but allow me the indulgence of saying that Roger played tennis in a way that seemed to stretch it out to the furthest limits of possibility, as if the game were designed with the prophecy of him in mind, and I couldn't get enough of the fulfillment that was pretty much every summer.
But then, into the golden light of his glory came a fleet-footed youth with a massive left arm and an inhuman will, flying into the sky of Roger's supremacy on black wings that churned sun-streaked blue into thick masses of lightning-shot black and gray, hanging in the air like the guillotine of the future that I never thought would call for Roger's neck. Fucking Rafa. If I love Roger with all of my heart than I hate Rafael Nadal with all of my soul. In my head Roger is white and gold and Rafa is the color of blood. Rafa came into Roger's perfect world and, somehow, tore it all down. All of a sudden, Roger was beatable, Roger wasn't going to live forever. Roger was our supreme champion, and... he couldn't beat Rafa. It started slow, with the French. Roger had never won the French even before Rafa, so even after he first lost to Nadal there it wasn't the end of the world. Nadal could quarter the market on clay because grass, hardcourt, and whatever shit they play on in Australia were part of Roger's kingdom and no army could storm that keep. They all said that Rafa didn't have the game to win on any of the faster surfaces. Yet. Yet is an insidious word, however, and faster than it seemed possible Rafa got better. As if some infernal engine fueled his ceaseless motor, Rafa got better and better and better up to the the point where patrick mcenroe and dick enberg were lowering the hard court odds to 50:50. Rafa never felt pressure, Rafa never stumbled, Rafa never gave up, and in situations where other men would crack, crumble, choke, and lose, Rafa never showed even a shred of fear, never once revealed to anyone his humanity, hit forehands and backhands and serves in a way that nobody else could, or arguably ever has, and won.
Even during Rafa's rapid ascension I still had confidence that Roger would overcome him in the end, but as trophies and plates continued to be doled out it became more and more clear that Rafa was Roger's kryptonite. I'd never imagined that Roger had weaknesses, but Rafa emitted deadly gamma rays that blasted through all of Roger's defenses at the speed of a falling giant, and turned him into a shivering, shaking, crystal thin shell of his former dominance. When Roger lost in the Finals of the French to Rafa in like ten minutes, losing all but four games in three sets, I was shaken. When he lost, a mere four weeks later, in five of the best sets many argue tennis has ever seen at Wimbledon, on GRASS, I was shattered. Number one was long gone, and the impetus produced by Nadal's already horrible victory at the inner sanctum of Roger's power seemed to me too extreme for Roger to ever reverse. He was number two in the world, and still incredible, but Nadal had thrust him from his pedestal of immortality, and when the new year brought the Australian Open Final I thought I could feel my idol of old hit the ground and break into a million pieces on the blue neo-styrofoam surface as Roger lost to him again, never, I thought, to be put back together again.
For all that, however, deep deep deep way deep down, I know that Rafa is no demon. He's not a bad guy, he's not a villain, he's not driven by the souls of a thousand demons. He's just.. really fucking good. Really amazingly good, and Roger couldn't beat him. Up until Rafa, Roger never really had a rival. He pretty much mopped the floor with everybody else out there. Rafa gave Roger his foil, his enemy to vanquish, but, unfortunately for Roger, he never really seemed to rise to that challenge. Roger could beat anybody else, but Rafa warped Roger's mind and stole his confidence like it seemed nobody ever would, and in the end was just too tough.
But the end for whom? I'm really running out of steam here and don't want to continue this post, sadly, but Rafa seems to have pounded his body to a pulp, only the uncertain future will tell whether or not he will ever recover, and in his absence, at the French, at Wimbledon, Roger has reclaimed the seat of preeminence that I thought he had abdicated forever. The future will tell how the narrative of Roger's career is ultimately received, how we will read the destructive meteor that was (is) Rafael Nadal. Will Nadal recover and resume the process (seemingly already well in hand a few months ago) of changing the guard? Will he fade away like a star shooting through the blackness of night, though leaving behind a much more tangible memory of his passing than a contrail in the sky? Will he come back and never be the same? Who knows, but just as his arrival altered the path of Roger's career and legacy, so to has this momentary passing; it is clear, however, that though Rafa has been out of sight for the past two majors, he won't be out of mind for the rest of tennis history.
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