Dear youngest Federers, by the time you are old enough to read this the whole world will make your father out to be egomaniacal no-gooder. Bear with them. Those who say that were the same ones who exalted your father to the status of the greatest tennis player ever.
Federer played tennis like the only way he knew to play, like ballet fused with opera. He was given to temper tantrums and then he realised that tennis meant far too much to him to throw away petulantly like he was doing during his outbursts.
Reams and reams of rows and columns were written of his competitive spirit, his graciousness in defeat, his attacking instincts, the way he graced the game. I really don't want to waste any more emotions on those same aspects. Everybody who knows who he is, knows him for who he has been. People have analysed his forehand, backhand and every other slight of hand, and I am no expert to contribute to any of that.
For somebody who watched tennis without ever having played it I loved Federer for what he was to me. He meant someone that I could aspire to be. To be the best at what I could be. But all this sounds churlish. I am nothing like any of my idols. I have wished I was.
Recently somebody remarked to me that Fed should leave whilst still at the top of his game. For me that is a very 'economic' way of looking at things. You know, comparative advantage and all. But there are two counter arguments to that.
1. What people fail to realize is that people, out of all living beings, behave the least rationally. Otherwise how can you justify the sales of Macbook, iPod, iPad etc. ?
2. And, he is not playing to maximize his economic earnings, he is playing because that is what he likes to do.
I am writing this after his loss in the Semifinals of Roland Garros and the loss in the Finals of Gerry Weber Open in Halle. I read all the experts saying that after Wimbledon and maybe Olympics he needs to re-evaluate his decision to keep on playing. Interesting that I should read this now when I am having doubts about my own capacity and academic prowess. Gone are the days when I used to remember trivia of all kinds and shapes. I can not only feel but I know for a fact that my memory is waning. My powers of concentration are going down. I can't buckle down and sit for a three hour sit-in exam. Cannot pull all-nighters like I used to. I remember studying non-stop for more than 14 hours straight before my Advanced Level Chemistry paper. Needless to say I aced it after cramming so much. But the most important thing was the high I felt after finishing the paper. I had unnecessarily assumed that I would be crashing and sleeping continuously but the feeling of ecstasy was so much I actually felt like I could go bungee jumping just about then.
Nowadays I don't feel that. I feel my capacity to assimilate data dwindling. I cannot keep at a paper for more than an hour the most. Most of all what matters is my mental capacity is diminishing as well.
Once an astute tennis commentator remarked that the thing Fed would have to guard against is his mental stamina giving way in between a match. Fed has always been a 'walk-about' guy. 'Walk-about' is a mental stroll you take to some other place in a match, say, after you have won the first set. So if it is Fed, Fed has won the first set and he cannot mentally sustain the same intensity he has been displaying whilst winning the first set and so he goes for a 'walk-about'. It is strikingly present in Fed. Not so much in Nadal. (I haven't watched enough Djokovic matches to comment on him) He reduces the intensity level of his play and eases up on his opponent. The commentator remarked that as Fed ages it will be even more difficult for him to take the walk-about and then get back into the game. The three-game walk-about would sometimes even extend to the next set. He basically implies that there would be crests and deeper troughs in the level of play. This is very significant. This means that Fed won't be able to do this. Coming back into a match would become that much harder.
This is significant because I feel I kind of agree with that commentator's comments. Let me say at the onset I have always been moody and prone to mood swings. But, as I am progressing in age my mood swings are becoming more pronounced. I know this sounds a little hypochondriacal but if you have been paying as much attention to self as I have been this is huge.
Ok, all I am saying is that aging is a natural process. How we choose to age, what we choose to do to defy aging and all other related matters should be strictly left to us. We, with stringent self analysis, are the best judges of what we are capable of. Life is anyway full of crests and troughs, a never ending sinusoidal curve. Our choice is to ride the crest and bear with the troughs.
Rant over.
