He IS for real !

I did something this weekend that a human being should almost never do. In an irrevocable entwining of fantasy and reality, I went and watched Roger Federer “in flesh and blood” at Flushing meadows.

The good news is I have attained the so-called nirvana that all those old sages got by being one with God, the bad news is, now I know he exists outside of my uncorrupted little silver screen world…



Photograph: Roger: Bring it on! [Courtesy of Vidy, the lens-crafter] They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and quite honestly I’d rather ramble a thousand odd --- reason why I don’t usually post pictures on my blog --- but since Federer has defied every rule ever made in history, I will make the exception :)

Disclaimer: I have never been able to enunciate the supernatural; I still have about five unfinished essays about Sampras in his prime with no hope of ever completing them and my attempt to capture the magic of New York is still wanting in many respects.

But I decided that the only way I can refrain from sighing every time I think back to Sunday or smiling at strangers on the train because I am thinking about Roger’s backhand lob was to put down my thoughts on celluloid even if I only get to convey a third of what I feel, and believe me, that will be a job well done.

Despite the fact that I checked usopen.org and weather.com at the rate of a million hits per minute in the few days preceding D-day, and all but obtained the players’ medical records, I couldn’t believe my eyes when Roger walked onto court. You can hardly blame me; for one, I never believed he was human, and for another, the last two times I attempted to watch infallibility close up, I ended up either conceding to the huge screen on the USTA grounds or glowering at a smug black board that declared the match I had traveled a thousand miles for was a walkover.

My first thoughts:

He is so tiny!
I don’t think this was a result of the seats high-up in the stands (the only ones you can get if you wait till the day they actually announce the schedule so you can be a 100% sure that Roger is going play the session; believe me, the finals is the only round you can positively predict Federer’s presence on court). Roger’s miniscule ---- he’s all of 6-foot-1, but he has a really small frame and I can understand now why he looks so tiny against the likes of the safins and roddicks out there, which goes to show just how much he relies on his mental toughness and mind game. His teeny little figure merely reinforced my picture of Roger -- a guy defying destiny, mortality and the whole world ---- so inexplicably small and alone in his insuperability…

He is so incredibly cute!!
Cute is hardly an adjective one would use to describe a guy that goes about demolishing everything in his way to the crown and with such effortless ease, but Roger Federer is incredibly cute. Right from his mannerisms --- twirling the racket, twiddling with the strings, pushing his head band back --- to giving opponents their due, smiling at Andy’s self-deprecating humor and accepting that he sometimes amazes himself with his own game, he is one of most endearing players on the tour.

It’s a whole lot tougher than it looks.
If you thought that backhand slice he creates from a ball that looks like it’s nowhere near where he is, and assumed the television just made it look impossible, nope! Incredible as it sounds, the television makes it look easier than it is. At the real Arthur Ashe, the sideline is too far in and the net is just too high! Even knowing it was Federer, I had my heart in my mouth for every carefully orchestrated backhand pass and every baseline shot to make it. But knowing Federer, it almost always did…
I think Mark Hodgkinson said it best when he said Roger makes tennis “easy on the eye”. It’s not just that he goes after every point and every ball and gets it, but he makes it look so easy. No bellowing, no puffing, no smashing the racket on the ground, he even moves silently. And you hardly ever see him contesting a call or glowering at the linesman, because, very simply, he can do without that point. He’s got enough to win, and then some.

He is human… He doesn’t look quite as invincible when he is a live Roger. Seeing him in flesh and blood added a dimension of vulnerability to the eventual champion that I wasn’t expecting to see: he can miss shots, he can slip up a little and bang his racket against his leg, and FYI, he breathes.

He’s still as infallible as it gets. Down 1-4 in the tiebreak, he bounced right back and won the next six points, bagging the second set in the way only Federer can. It’s true that tennis legends most often find themselves in tight situations and the mark of a great player is to slowly and surely play his way out of it. But IMO nooone does it with as much versatility as Roger does. He doesn’t just spring up and fire an ace; he seems to have an answer for everything --- amazing return of impossible serves, incredible backhand passes to reach seemingly unreachable shots, forehand and backhand volleys before they become off-center, and everything in between. Nobody says it better than the eloquent Andy Roddick did after Wimbledon, “Maybe I'll just punch him or something.” Quite possibly, that is the only way to ‘beat’ Roger.

[As an objective fan, I do acknowledge that Roger is playing a little below his robot-like precision this Open, and I can’t help but wonder if he has subconsciously lowered the bar to bridge the gap. There were shots he’d usually never miss and unforced errors that are so unlike him. He’s even showing emotion on court and he conceded a set to Kiefer today. And quite honestly, his match-up against the absolutely incredible but sadly under-rated Nalbandian scares me a little. But the fact that in the case of Roger the question only goes so far as wondering whether he is going to lose a set or be broken on his serve, says a lot about the level of his game].

Needless to say, I caused many a viewer some disconcertion by running down every five minutes to watch him close-up and making sure it was the real deal and was responsible for about half the “Go Roger” screams that rang out in the stadium. Not that he needed any of it. I sometimes wonder what he feels about these lesser mortals whose only taste of the supernatural is to watch one in action and cheer him on because the mere thought of contributing decibels makes them feel part of invincibility in some inexplicable way.

I can’t imagine how it must feel to have his peers say time and time again “I gave it my best but he was just too good for me.”

Or to hit that backhand pass knowing that it is going to sail past an opponent and think, “Well, that’s why I am number one”.

I wonder how it must feel to walk in to a court time and time again, almost knowing that this is just a step in the way of holding up that trophy he is going to eventually carry home.

It was one of the most amazing days of my life, watching Roger from a few thousand yards away; I’m richer by a wonderful experience, a picture of me with an icon (pun unintended) of the greatest tennis player ever and this profound ecstasy that comes only with seeing true genius, that is not going to go away in a long time…

I wish I could have touched him though, if only to make sure he wasn’t made of barbed wire and concrete….