“[...] and if you are not a tennis person, I suspect this may be somewhat hard to fathom – the idea that watching two men spend that many hours hitting a ball could actually make your heart pound so hard that you have to keep jumping up and yelling and grabbing your own head.”
I live and die with Roger Federer’s matches. When you factor in the year-long tennis season, multiplied by the number of years I’ve supported this player, I have long surpassed that clichéd expression about a cat’s nine lives. Little good comes out of being so emotionally invested in tennis. My once-upon-a-time harmless support for Federer has morphed into full-blown love for the sport. If I thought my level of fandom at the Australian Open was dangerous, then what I feel now is bordering on lunacy. Federer’s performance at Flushing Meadows will either send me skyrocketing to new stratospheres, or nosediving into a reality where Federer loses in Grand Slams.
I suppose I cannot bring up a major loss without following it up with the next natural thought; Federer’s ‘unanswered question’: Rafael Nadal. My pendulum-like relationship with Nadal swings from fire-breathing hate to jaw-dropping admiration – I hold him responsible for all of my tennis-related mental breakdowns, but his tenacity is why he is another exception to my ‘exclusively Federer’ posts.
However, loyalties do not fade quickly, so that is all I will say about the Spaniard.
And this post for that matter. Every time I start something that is beyond match narration, I meander and end up stopping – why else do you think I can spew play-by-play Tweets, but hardly anything about the aftermath? It’s hard to shut me up when it comes to the analysis, but to encapsulate the awesomeness (whoa, that’s a legit word) of Federer… Words fail me.
3 Comments
September 6, 2009 at 13:02
Nice post! I share your feelings about Federer, whom I’ve been following ever since he started playing tennis on the ATP tour, and Rafael Nadal. The final that he won against Roger in 2008 is the single most excruciating TV sport moment I’ve ever endured in my entire life. It could have been the most beautiful tennis match ever played – and it objectively was before the match point – yet it ended up being the saddest ever. Nadal is Federer’s Nemesis, yet at times, when heartbreak fades, I can only admire this guy, who remains simple and modest off the court, and so damn merciless on the court. Tennis needs this rivalry even if it broke my heart 13 times out of 20.
September 7, 2009 at 18:42
I totally agree with you! Wimbledon 2008 and AO 2009 emotionally crippled me, but Nadal is too nice of a guy to continue hating.
Alas, I only started supporting Federer after the ‘ponytail era’. I really hope he has more years to come – I cannot imagine what will happen to our fandom when he retires.
Great to hear from you beyond Twitter!
September 11, 2009 at 21:14
Nice to read your post too from beyond Twitter, even though our timezones rarely cross ! Hard for most to understand our intoxication with this sport but I think I do get where you’re coming from.
A new Federer – Nadal final at the US Open this year would be the greatest gift…I’m getting ready to live on “night session time” for the whole weekend. This one is even harder than the Australian Open timezone (I can catch some in the morning). After these 2 weeks of tournament I’m lacking a lot of sleep and my productivity at work has decreased….oops.
Being Swiss I had the luxury to hear all about Federer from the beginning and see his first matches on local TV, so I have no credit really.