“[...] 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.

Inspired by Joachim (it happens more often than I care to admit)…

All evoke emotion and ambition – senses so strong that they might very well outweigh my abilities. This isn’t false modesty – little else is worse than falling short of expectations.

Put simply, there is no satisfactory way to describe the Roddick-Federer Wimbledon final.

I usually am very stingy about including other players in a Roger Federer post, but I would be remissed if I did not mention Andy Roddick’s glorious display of an arsenal of skills throughout the tournament, which stunned even the most staunch of naysayers. As predicted, Roddick made Federer work for it. Their final match was a far cry from the one in 2004, when Roddick’s kitchen sink was unceremoniously rebounded by Federer’s bathtub – this time, Roddick brought along other household utilities. He swept aside Tomas Berdych, Lleyton Hewitt and Andy Murray – not easy feats by any means – and despite the popular pre-match opinion, it was a near-possible task for Roddick to scale and conquer the Swiss Alp, almost too close for comfort in the first and fourth sets. As devoted as I am to ‘Rog’, it is such a pity to see Roddick lose after an agonising 30-game fifth set, which he really didn’t deserve.

Perhaps the poem by Rudyard Kipling, emblazoned in the Wimbledon clubhouse, best surmises Roddick’s comeback, as well as Federer’s reascent to greatness (old married dudes have still got it!). I must admit that I am ‘ye of little faith’ – never in my time spent in wishful thought did I believe that 2009 would be the year Federer reclaimed his Wimbledon and World Number 1 titles, the latter being an unprecedented achievement. His victory at Roland Garros compensated for the Australian Open heartbreak and it buoyed my self-assurance of a Federer win, but that soon plummeted after the first set and brought back the nightmare of last year’s epic match. To see how visibly subdued I was, you wouldn’t know the havoc that was going through my mind until Roddick served the forehand that sent the ball into oblivion.

My head still throbs; my eyes are bloodshot from weeping; my backside aches from six hours of sitting; my heart is threatening an aneurism; and my body has yet to recover from two weeks of sleep-deprived nights. When it comes to Federer, it is ‘no holds barred’ – nothing is too long, too outlandish, too emotional, too stark raving mad… Many people cannot take me seriously, but there are reasons why he is worthy of the fanfare – 20 Grand Slam finals, 15 Grand Slams, Career Slam, World Number 1.

By no stretch of the imagination, Roger Federer’s win at Roland Garros was extraordinary, not to mention a long time coming. Having never won the Coupe des Mousquetaires, made worse by his fall slight decline from greatness in 2008, this makes his victory even sweeter. As a Federer fanatic, I am tired of seeking written therapy after his losses, so it is appropriate (and only mildly crazy) that I, too, am putting so much significance into this post.

Joachim and I, being hardcore tennis geeks who don’t actually play the sport, place an unhealthy amount of weight on superstition and fate. I can’t speak for Joachim and his karmic relationship with Rafael Nadal, but when it comes to Federer, I strongly believe in the butterfly effect… And wearing lucky underwear. Very few could have predicted that he would equal Pete Sampras’ record of 14 Grand Slams on this clay surface… I’m serious – Federer was meant to win!

The Fed Express (who else thought it was destiny that the FedEx logo was brazenly displayed on the sponsorship boards?) forced me to ignite my interest in this tournament, giving me the last-minute opportunity to watch the match with Davina (and 100 strangers) at Star City in my last year in Australia, an exhilarating experience I would have foregone any other time. Then, only do I realise that there is something better than catching a final with your siblings at home (no offence to Vanessa and Christopher).

Shot-in-the-dark theories aside, I’m going with the simple and say that I’m happy to be writing about this particular Federer achievement. I’m happy to have seen a semblance of his signature style of graceful poetry. I’m happy that he shrugged off the pressures of the Grand Slams record and Career Slam laurel, as well as the momentary scare suffered in the second set, to win his first French Open title. I’m happy he’s ecstatic.

Good looks aside, why I am infatuated with Oguri Shun is a far cry from the reasons behind my schoolgirl crush on Zheng Yuan Chang and Lee Min Ho.

Only literally, of course.

I am a superficial book-snob who is all about the aesthetics, so an ugly book cover is simply unacceptable. Never mind if it’s the lousiest pieceashit I’ve read, or too abstruse for my comprehension; as long as it sits pretty on my bookshelf…

Life can be so pedestrian at times that you’d rather it be a stage… Or a set. Then again, reality’s dramatics might provoke a desire to be directed just so one is relieved from doing any decision-making. And on the most banal level, at least the hours in the cinema give a sort of escape.

Shot by Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair, the inspiration and imagination, in front of and behind the camera, that are responsible for the films that move us.

It was so surreal and almost make-believe that I discounted the fact that it actually happened. And just like that, my ‘date with destiny’ came and went.

How more hardcore fans remain satisfied with such a short-lived encounter I can never fathom. I, too, quietly gasped when he made his appearance; laughed harder than necessary at his antics; gave him my undivided attention, even when he played the occasional peripheral role; applauded and yelled when he took his bow… But the similarities stop there.

I am a ‘not enough’ person. I sat four rows from the front, within 20 metres from the stage - not near enough. I saw Zheng Yuan Chang in person (he is as statuesque and easy on the eyes as I’d expected, but my judgment is dangerously skewed) - not drawn out enough. I snapped two pictures - not personal enough.

Momentary glee from autographs and photographs becomes overshadowed by the rude realisation that he will be unable to distinguish one screaming girl from the next, not to mention his inevitable leave – why bother? My ego cannot withstand this degree of bruising.

I want Jon Favreau’s job; better yet, I want to be Jon Favreau:

1. Who wouldn’t?
2. He gets to create alongside Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and other great names – all delicious and brilliant in their own right.
3. To have Obama speak the words he writes… Come on!
4. He plays around with the written word of our time – I like that.
5. Starbucks gives him wings…

A word to the wise: Do not talk or ask questions about Japanese, Korean or Taiwanese television series in my presence – you will send me into a tirade of squeals, kawaii actions, made-up Japanese and Korean phrases and laughable conduct in general (please observe).

I blame this behaviour, unworthy of an adult, on the deprivation suffered during my teenage years.