Long Live the King!

Royalty has lately left. David Beckham lined up for over 12 hours to pay his respect for the Queen as she passed away on 8th September 2022. Cynics over the world might snarl over her 10 day state mourning and some might even scoff at a Beckham lining up (refusing a celebrity treatment) as part of collective lining up culture of the British; Indians might even curse her for having their beloved Kohinoor in her crown and not returning it back, but nobody can deny the impact that her long reign of over 70 years would’ve had over not only Britain but all the commonwealth nations at large. She was royalty and would be missed by many. But let’s face it, she was born into it, she inherited it.

But what about a commoner who discovered royalty, made it his own and would represent it forever. Even for those who stood on the other side.

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It was 29th January 2006. I was in Bengaluru at a friend’s place. It was a lazy evening and thankfully, one of my friend’s flatmate switched on the TV. Australian Open men’s final was getting broadcasted. One Roger Federer was playing with a Cypriot, Marcos Baghdatis. It had been more than a decade since I had last watched any tennis match. My childhood idol Boris Becker had long retired and had left such a void that I hadn’t picked up watching the sport since then. My fondness for Boris Becker and tennis in this order had been picked up from my older sister. She was a Boris Becker fan. For a lot of people, fondness for a sport emanates from first picking up a player or a side. Love for the sport follows. An Arsenal fan might be an Arsenal fan not because he knows the history or accomplishments of the side but simply because his father was a fan to begin with and he grew up watching his father hollering at his favourite team’s matches.

I had heard of Roger Federer through news, and I knew that he was kind of winning all the tournaments. It seemed slightly unreal because till then dominance of such an extent existed only in women’s tennis. Pete Sampras had been quite dominant for over a decade but even he didn’t win tournaments on a roll. We all love underdogs and since Roger Federer wasn’t one anymore, he hadn’t particularly piqued my interest.

First set of the match trudged along. Federer was committing far too many mistakes. Why is he so famous? He didn’t even look interested. Rather, he seemed bored, as if he wanted to be at some place other than the court. He lost the first set. The second set also started on the same note. He was again committing far too many mistakes and bore the same bored look. Aargh… But then, suddenly in the middle of the second set, something changed. A few points here and there and he seemed to find some interest back in the game. His number of unforced errors came down and his shots started landing in miraculously.

What followed was a total carnage – I hadn’t seen such a combination of power and elegance ever before and I had watched Boris Becker, Stefan Edberg, Lendl, Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi play at their peak. There was something in Roger that none had. Tennis to me was all about power, a lot of labour, sweat, but had always been largely devoid of beauty (we’ll talk about it in a bit!). Watching snippets of some of the old matches of 60’s and 70’s gave a sense of calm where no player seemed to run over another player, as if they were not rivals but friends, but again, that could be construed as slow and boring. This was different. It wasn’t slow, but rather poetic. Roger displayed beauty and power at the same time. In those few minutes, he plugged me in and gave tennis back to me. And I followed him and it again for the next 16 years.

Talking about beauty, players finish some points so beautifully that one could misconstrue the sport to be lovely. And that’s an okay assumption as long as one hasn’t watched Roger play. Because it’s not about the way he won his points. It’s about the way he moved. It was almost as if a dancer had stepped onto the court. Back and forth, side to side, forehands and backhands, slices and curveballs, power, assuredness, deft touches, rhythmic motions - a perfect symphony in play. Not a false chord here, not a note gone haywire there. For movie aficionados, comparison with an Alfred Hitchcock movie would be apt for a Hitchcock movie is not essentially about the give-away at the climax but about the intrigue that the whole narrative provides. It keeps you hooked all the time. Looking at Roger, it was as if an old-world charm had been sprinkled over him as he acted as the sole bridge between the old world and the new. Like they say - they don’t make them anymore.

That was delicious…a commentator spoke as he sliced a ball while playing against Andy Murray. I’ll never ever forget this point for the rest of my life… spoke another as Roger downed his nemesis Rafael Nadal in Australian Open Final 2017. This is the best footwork I’ve ever seen… he glides through the court…John McEnroe once spoke about his foot work while speaking on the microphone. These are not usual comments that people speak when players win points. These were rapturous epithets evoking out of the awe that Roger’s play brought to the sport. If I remember correctly, Mark Philippoussis once commented that if you took at a still image of a player while hitting the ball, player’s face would always be contorted and would look ugly, but not Roger’s. I knew that was true for I had seen such images of players before and all looked…well…ugly! Later, I spent some time looking at Federer’s still images while hitting the ball. Philippoussis was right! The face never gets ugly. People do observe stuff and demeanours!

A lot has been spoken about his calm demeanour and the way he has conducted himself on and off the court. And that is all true. It is true that whenever he lost a point, the most you could get out of him would be an unhappy look, but never a what-do-I-do-now or see-what-he-has-done-to-me look. And how could one forget that famous Come On or Kumm Jetze in his Basel dialect when he would win a crucial point. And people loved him. On court, he had always been everybody’s favourite, and that had also to do with his poise and the grace with which he handled his wins and losses apart from his impeccable game.

A man ought to be judged by his legacy. And what kind of a legacy does Roger leave behind. Before Federer arrived on the scene, average retirement age of a male tennis player was 30 years. Andre Agassi was an exception when he retired at the age of 35, but he was an exception – his longevity possibly borne out of the disciplinarian approach his father had worked out for him since his childhood days. But, I wouldn’t know – I am just guessing here. As far as Roger is concerned, he is retiring at the ripe age of 41. His closest compatriots and rivals Nadal and Djokovic are going great guns at age of 36 and 35 respectively. I know I would rub a few of Nadal and Djokokvic’s fans the wrong way here, but both might as well thank Federer for giving them a goal to achieve and keep fighting for it day in day out. If not for Roger, both would’ve retired long back.

In tennis, five-year gap is a generational gap. Federer surpassed them all – those who arrived at the tennis scene with him and those who arrived after him have long retired since. Which also brings to focus the kind of fitness he has been able to achieve and keep over such a long time. And a testament to it has been the fact that he has never retired from a match. Federer has stayed relevant across two decades and has inspired at least three generation of active players during his life as a tennis player. Now, that he hangs his boots, he has possibly given much more to tennis than we would ever know.

I’m sure when he would’ve begun his career, he wouldn’t have thought that people would take his name in the same breath as Muhammad Ali, Pele, or Michael Jordan. But that is what has transpired for he is one player who has transcended tennis. And that’s some achievement and that’s some legacy.

The Queen left a few weeks ago but the King has left the court now and with that tennis has again left this poor soul.