Roger Federer Ends Year As True Master, Even in Defeat

My daughter—she who has accompanied me in much of my tennis journey this year—had been planning to travel for some time, and settled on Australia and the Far East. She walked in one evening and said “Do you fancy meeting up with me in Shanghai? You could buy tickets for the tennis for my birthday present…..”

My response? Of course I can’t—I’ve got work, it would cost a fortune (and, in reality, I’m too scared to make such a trip on my own).

No sooner had I said ‘no’ than the idea had bounced round my brain, flipped my perspective and changed the answer to a question: “Why not?” I have a bit of money from the legacy left me by my dad, I have a bit of leave to take, I can meet up with my daughter even if I can’t travel with my husband. I could see Roger play again.

So the plan was laid.

Then, after a victorious Davis Cup, the bombshell. Roger had pulled from Stockholm with exhaustion and was taking a break, possibly for the rest of the year.

My first reaction was a plummeting heart—to have spent so much and anticipated more, to have worked myself to such a pitch of excitement at what I was going to see was all too much. But this is Roger—he would make this decision only if he needed to. I have to swallow my disappointment and enjoy what remains of the thrilling adventure I have planned.

So I content myself with replay after replay of the USO final – deriving more joy at each viewing, wonderment at the final game of the second set where the world around him slows down so that he can produce four of the most stunning points I've ever seen played consecutively.

I am also drawing on the memory of my first (and what may now transpire to be my last) experience of Roger in the flesh playing at Wimbledon. I am going to have a wonderful trip, meeting my daughter on the other side of the world, when I've never so much as flown alone before.

And if I never have the chance to see him play live again, I can still say 'I saw him once and he was magnificent'. And while I await what fortune serves up, I always have the recording of Roger in red, returned to full glory, at Flushing Meadow.

Then news. He is to play at Madrid. I am shocked. If he plays poorly, is knocked out early, he may draw a line under the season. No Masters Cup. If he plays well but is exhausted—same result. I fear this is how it will be until the middle of November: I’ll be afraid of my own shadow. But he beats, in straight sets, each opponent until Murray, who produces his best tennis at the right time. Andy wins well, and Roger is magnanimous in defeat.

Roger then commits to Basel—it's his home and he's current holder of the title, so it’s not a surprising decision.

But a little demon continues to turn the tiny screw in my head, distorting my view as though I was wearing rose tinted glasses tinged with yellow—a particularly gloomy shade of mud. If Roger loses, if he wins but is drained of energy, if he injures himself, he may draw a final line under 2008.

But the wins come, all in straight sets to tricky opponents. I get to see none of these matches so anticipate the final against one of his oldest and toughest adversaries, David Nalbandian, w

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