“Days some when I can't pick up a racket,
days other when I don't want to pick up a racket. Either I am psychologically
drained, or a stiff back preceded by a painful knee. Considering me ancient
wouldn't so much as bother me, as much as it would amuse me. I am a 35-year old
playing a young man's game, but am still scheduled to play the biggest game of
the season, come first light, this Sunday.
“My opponent and I have played many times,
and he beat me under the sweltering heat of New York once, a day in which I had
no chance of coming close to the finish line. With time, I learned to live with
myself – and by that, I mean I learned to live with losses, every loss used to
fester for days in my mind, now it festers for a few hours, I learn and then I
move on, no questions asked, no memories retained.
“While I dissect the reason for the loss
and archive it carefully to access that quantum of memory the next time I play
the same opponent, the painful memory of the loss is ephemeral. I listen to my
body more, more than I ever used to, I learned to live in the moment, more than
I ever used do, and I fear losing less, which is something I have always been
used to.
“I am one of the very few in this rarefied
air who loves winning more than I despise losing. I also appreciate playing –
these days more than ever, while I don't play for records any more, I simply
love playing the game - and on good days, I'll happily take winning too. It's
not so much as "how much" I play, as much as "how well" I
play I most care about these days.
“There are very few emotions that can
replicate playing inside the cauldron of Centre court, with the heat of battle
and love for competition adorning the combative theatre, the tenor of the game –
one half of which I control, and the other up to my deserved opponent, as
roaring adoration from the crowd swivels into a deafening silence seconds
before am about to serve, as I meticulously wipe away the sweat from my
forehead with my right thumb under the sun that came out of the clouds seconds
before, I hope to stand at championship point…”
And, so begins the tale of Roger Federer…
A tale that began
not when he first came onto the scene as a pony-tailed youngster, who seemed to
have the right blend of cockiness and poise as he collected trophies wherever
he went and in whichever tournaments he played. But rather in a year, when he
went about gathering a fraction of the titles anew, more than a
decade-and-a-half since he first stepped onto the professional turf.
These have had
been titles that he had won before with ease but those which had started to
elude him in the recent times, favouring his younger rivals – who, despite all
his efforts against them – looked to be a mite stronger and a tad forceful.
This is then a
tale that has put some context into Federer’s hallowed career-map because had
he not taken that six-month layoff to rehabilitate his knee, we would have
never gotten to see this resurgence of his. Neither would he have gone on to
prioritise his career as we have seen him do in this past 12 months, choosing
what and where he wants to play with an economised efficiency that one wouldn’t
have thought possible of him.
By pacing himself – say, like, missing
three-months of the clay season – he’s able to keep himself ahead of his rivals.
Not only as a strategist, but also as a player who can stay with his rivals
without his back being up against the wall. And, in a way, it’s the first that
has acted as a catalyst for the latter.
On-court, he’s not missed a trick in strategizing.
But, in the last two years even as his strategies flowed and ebbed in a match, this
year he’s found a way to keep them optimised throughout matches, which has also
neutralised his opponents with no backup tactics for them to rely on. Thus, where he found himself
being drained and sapped of energy after being pushed to best-of-five and
best-of-three – literally – his opponents being caught off-guard by him has led
to finish most of his matches quicker, thus keep himself around for a while
longer. In the short-term, in the given tournament. And, in the long run, dare
we say in the Tour?
But, therein lies the other side to the
tale. The side that dwells on unpredictability
and uncertainty, where one knows nought when or where the trail of success will end. Not
even Federer, who despite being the protagonist of his professional life, is
still dependent on life’s scriptwriting to get him play his part. Starting with
when he takes to the court against Marin Cilic on Sunday…
