Tears of Sadness and Joy for Roger Federer

It was the day of anticipation, anxiety, tension, and emotions that I had never faced before. It was July 6, 2008, the final of the Men's singles at Wimbledon.

I distinctly remember the day as if it were today. I had my Japanese classes at the time when the match was scheduled [6.30 pm IST] and was debating whether to miss classes or not.

Finally, I decided to go and attend the lecture, but all throughout, my mind was on the match. During the entire lecture, I kept on fidgeting and was totally restless.

There was some kind of a foreboding and somehow I couldn't shake it. I tried concentrating on my Japanese, but it appeared Greek to me that day.

When the class ended, I frantically called one of my friends to ask him about the score and his reply was alarming. Federer had lost the first set 4-6.

When I reached home, he was leading 4-0 in the second, but went on to lose the set 4-6.

I was so frustrated that I started behaving like a deranged person; shouting at Nadal for playing well and shouting at Federer to play well. My family members thought I had lost it completely. I had never behaved like that before.

I started offering prayers and tokens to God, for I didn't know what else to do.

Then suddenly it started raining and I thought maybe God heard my prayers. But I didn't have the guts to follow the rest of the match.

The next day, after I reached my classes, the first thing I did was activate the GPRS in my cell phone and did a Google search to find who was the winner: my heart beating a violent tattoo against my chest.

When I saw the name Nadal, I felt a dull weight on my stomach and then nothing. I went totally numb.

I lost the interest to sit for the lecture and felt like running away. But where?

When the class ended and I reached home, I found the rerun going on. Somehow, I forced myself to watch, but it was mortal agony, pain that was not physical but that which was far more penetrating.

I couldn't take it and I started crying: crying as if I had lost someone close, crying because my God had betrayed me, crying because maybe I had not prayed enough, crying because I couldn't bear to see Nadal's name being announced as the winner.

For two days after that, I wandered around my house, hoping, praying that this was just a dream, a dream which would anytime be broken, but it was not so.

Slowly, I came back to normal, but whenever, someone in my friend circle used to proudly say that Nadal won Wimbledon, it made me feel like adding insult to injury.

When Federer won the Olympic doubles, I was very happy because I couldn't think of anyone more deserving than him.

And when he won the the last Grand Slam of 2008, I cried again, but this time it was tears of happiness and tears of pure vindicated joy!