It took me a day to figure out my bearings between Zen and devastation, but I am miraculously still alive after the US Open men’s final. You just learn not to sweat the small stuff – marriage (boo hoo!), Roland Garros, Wimbledon, Grand Slams record, Career Slam, World Number 1, fatherhood; everything else is icing on an already sweet cake. It helps that I have gained impenetrable armour over the past year and if I can survive those setbacks…

What can I say? Composing this will either serve as much-needed therapy, or plunge me into severe melancholia (skyrocket or nosedive, remember?). I read match analyses and reactions; I do not write them. I am neither a commentator, nor a journalist (yet) – I am a die-hard fan. Just as how the wind kept shifting during the match, both literally and figuratively, so did my emotions. By the end of it, when Juan Martin Del Potro (his name appears first in this post, because his win was deserved) collapsed on the court, I reached a new spiritual plane… That, or I must have taken a chill pill some time between the fourth and fifth sets.

Roger Federer remains superhuman, so there’s no reason for my fandom to take a turn for the half-ass. Even so, waking up at 5 am to make a trip to the casino counts as one of the crazier things I have done in the name of ‘Fedophilia’. Do I regret putting in such effort only to see him lose? Not in the slightest! Will Federer make it 16 Grand Slams? You’d better believe it, baby! Allez!

“[...] 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.

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.

“[...] defeat for World No. 3 Djokovic means that he will be surpassed in the Rankings by No. 4 Andy Murray on 11 May when the 2008 Rome points drop off.”

Because Roger Federer is giving me nothing, I will settle for the decline of Novak Djokovic… The widening gap of Rafael Nadal’s winning streak notwithstanding.

It is clear that Rafael Nadal is far from normal, beginning with his deliberate left-handed playing. He undeniably lacks Roger Federer’s graceful poetry on the court, but his technique, which I can only liken to the Spanish Armada, has nonetheless earned him a very good season in 2008.

So, why fix what is not broken?

The Federer-Nadal rivalry naturally puts Joachim and I at opposite ends, but we can agree on one thing – NOVAK DJOKOVIC SUCKS! His recent win means that Roger Federer is only 10 points from dropping to Number 3.

The Invincible Man has become beatable.

I like sweaty sportsmen as much as the next girl (or gay man); the more skin and muscle definition we see, the better. But isn’t it amazing what additional spools of thread can accomplish?

Thanks to the Tennis Masters Cup, there is sexiness in a suit and sportswear.