Roger Federer: When the Will Gives Up for a Moment

(Photo by Lucas Dawson/Getty Images)

A guess, nothing more...

He remembered the moments he had done the impossible. He remembered the battles he had won during the war he lost.

He remembered his hands and feet getting tied when he needed them the most. He felt that it was unfair, given that the momentum was with him.

He stared at uncertainty when he stared at the victor. It felt disappointing, and heart-breaking when he remembered the moments in his life when he was in complete control of his fate.

It seemed now that he had an equal, if not in dealing with the rest of the world (there could be none other in dealing with the rest of the world), in dealing with each other.

This was an opponent who, with brute force had torn apart, time and again, the weapons he had created out of sheer artistry and genius.

Brute force breaks. It doesn't need to channel its energies in any skillful manner. It is not creative in the way it breaks. It is mechanical and repetitive.

And in front of him now seemed the personification of the savage, who would not relent but go on doing what he is doing that he is optimized for: operate as the antidote for what he was.

There could not be another matching him in ability, and the Tennis Gods were aghast that there he was the anomaly that was dominating their kingdom like almost only they could do, and almost ready to challenge them.

But, in this universe, there is always an amount of force, even though misdirected - unless it is orthogonal - that can destroy any "amount" of intelligent design.

That is what exactly they had conceived to be sent as his antithesis. Yes he was the Smith to his Neo. The anomalies are always supposed to cancel each other.

For a moment, he forgot it that he had every bit in skill what his opponent had in force of mind and body, and maybe even more.

For a moment, he wanted to punish himself for the unchangeable past, forgetting that the future offers opportunity to redeem himself.

For a moment, it escaped him that he was close in that battle.

For a moment, he forgot that dealing with such an adversary as was standing before him in triumph, and coming out on top of him would only further his immortality, and his victor was a chance given to him to prove to himself yet another thing.

For a moment, he forgot that he was the only authority to which he had anything to prove to.

For a moment, he relaxed his grip over his mind. For a moment, he let himself be weak in sadness.

He cried.

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Since then, Roger Federer has won two more Grand Slam titles and established himself, in most minds, as the Greatest Of All Time.

The hypocrites have retracted and have now gone back to being "believers."

Roger Federer seems a happy man.

Wishing one of the greatest exponents of the game, all the best in his career which promises to extend over another half a decade...

ALLEZ!

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