{"id":258183,"date":"2022-09-26T13:33:28","date_gmt":"2022-09-26T17:33:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=258183"},"modified":"2022-09-26T14:18:03","modified_gmt":"2022-09-26T18:18:03","slug":"one-last-title-for-federer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/sports\/one-last-title-for-federer\/","title":{"rendered":"One last title for Federer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Federer is not a King. Calling him \u201cHis Majesty\u201d is nonsense, even though he has the class of any noble. He declared himself \u201cthe enemy of war and the reverse of it, the medal.\u201d He does not want to hold power, or crush anyone. He is not interested in showing power, speed, conquering land. If there is something he wants to conquer, it is souls. The soul of his rivals, of his friends. <\/span>Twinkling souls, pensive souls, energetic souls, troubled souls, erratic and giddy souls, dagger souls, fluffy souls, souls like insomniac pistol<\/span><\/i>s,<\/span>1<\/b><\/sup> souls of various caliber on any court he goes to. The souls of the public.<\/span><\/p>\n

Federer thanks the public when they revere him; he raises his arms toward the bleachers as humbly as any neighbor\u2019s son. He doesn\u2019t yell when he wins. He doesn\u2019t scream when he loses. Only the left fist clenched to his chest.<\/span><\/p>\n

He never played tennis with a racket. On his right he uses a brush with which he draws strokes to the lines. He has the sensitivity and genius of an artist. The anxiety of creation. He invented the surprise attack at the 2015 Cincinnati Open: during the opponent\u2019s serve he would stand very close to the midfield line and bounce the opponent\u2019s serve early. The ball fell behind the net. Baffling.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Swiss can never be a King, perhaps an artist, and since I don\u2019t really know what he is, I\u2019ll just say that Roger Federer is a kind man.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Roger<\/a>
Roger Federer lived his farewell from the courts at the Laver Cup in London. Photo: Andy Rain\/EPA\/EFE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Reina Mar\u00eda Rodr\u00edguez wrote that everyone in Geneva knows where Borges\u2019 house is, even if they don\u2019t know the name of the Swiss president. In Munchenstein, everyone knows about the Schaulager, a former warehouse converted into a well-known art gallery by Swiss architects Herzog and De Meuron. But no one can say about the house where Federer lived as a child. There is no monument, no symbol dedicated to Roger. There is no street named after him, nor a plaque on the front of the house where he was born, nor even evidence of his passing through school.<\/span><\/p>\n

Federer can be the president of Switzerland. His first surname and his name are in themselves a symbol, a monument, a street, the city, the entire country. And a little more.<\/span><\/p>\n

May he be a God. The God of time. He was born in the land of the great watchmakers and dominated a sport where \u2015 presumably \u2015 points are scored following the quarter hour. It must be paradoxical, or to put it like Borges, it will be a truth that seems like a lie; but the Swiss displays a game in which time is erased.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd no player is faster, or gives such a misleading impression of being effortless, than Roger Federer,\u201d wrote David Foster Wallace in one of his books.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Roger<\/a>
Roger Federer lived his farewell from the courts at the Laver Cup in London. Photo: Andy Rain\/EFE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For the U.S. writer, he is one of those rare, preternatural athletes who appear to be exempt, at least in part, from certain physical laws:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGood analogues here include Michael Jordan,\u00a0who could not only jump inhumanly high but actually hang there a beat or two longer than gravity allows, and Muhammad Ali, who really could \u2018float\u2019 across the canvas and land two or three jabs in the clock-time required for one. There are probably a half-dozen other examples since 1960. And Federer is of this type \u2014 a type that one could call genius, or mutant, or avatar. He is never hurried or off-balance. The approaching ball hangs, for him, a split-second longer than it ought to. His movements are lithe rather than athletic.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For Michel Contreras it was Michael Jordan who confirmed that God looks elegant in shorts.\u2026 And white ones, Federer added on the Wimbledon grass.<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore, the gods play in shorts and Roger does it with a different light, with a wise hand to reproduce a single long shadow on the court (we could call the beauty that covers the entire court this way). It\u2019s pretty, that\u2019s his game. Malleable, and the mold of it is that: the beauty contained in 24 meters of cement, clay or grass.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Roger<\/a>
Roger Federer. Photo: Taken from ESPN<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The minute hand seemed to move at the whim of his racket. In 2017, after six months of inactivity, he won the Australian Open at the age of 36 and became the oldest winner of a Grand Slam. He also holds the record for the oldest number one in the entire circuit and for the most consecutive weeks. It was the time in his time, regardless of the greatness of Nole or Nadal.<\/span><\/p>\n

But if Achilles by his heel is Achilles, Federer by his knee is Tommy, Ismael or Alexander, he is not Roger. Perhaps a demigod.<\/span><\/p>\n

Federer could be human, but his kinesthetics on a court cast serious doubt on that hypothesis. His name, almost a sentiment for tennis lovers. His backhand parallel to one hand, orgasmic: it is a challenge for the first dancer of any ballet company. He flows in the serve, in his patented cross smash, in his volleys. Nobody ever danced better tango with the net than the Swiss. If tennis is a dance for two, Federer made it for three.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Foster Wallace, seeing him on the track was like whistling Mozart during a Metallica concert. If we follow that ball, Roger would be an Ennio Morricone of tennis. The classic and the contemporary in the same (in)genius. Innate ability to generate multiple solutions. The mixture of old tennis and modern tennis. Finesse and subtlety in the face of physical play from the back of the court. The Federer moment against the Nadal impulse: \u201cthe passionate virility of the South of Europe against the intricate and clinical artistry of the North.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Roger<\/a>
Roger Federer lived his farewell from the courts at the Laver Cup in London. Photo: Andy Rain\/EFE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He wanted to say goodbye this way, on the same side of the net of the man who prevented him from winning his sixth Wimbledon in a row, who defeated him in six Grand Slam finals, who pushed him to the limit. Nothing amazes him anymore, therefore nothing outrages him, he hates no one, he already assumes everything, he waits for everything, not even the 2019 Wimbledon final hurts him, he stones no one, he embraces everyone, he no longer aspires to anything, although some remnants remain from when he was human…<\/span><\/p>\n

In the 2022 Laver Cup, both come out in ultramarine blue with a white headband. Jack Sock and Frances Tiafoe, the farewell rivals, wear red. It starts at the Federer net and on a forehand sneaks it through the gap between the post and the net. Rare point for the rest of the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

He hasn\u2019t played doubles since 2015. He hasn\u2019t played officially for over a year. He\u2019s flabby and his blow is flat like Nole\u2019s abdomen, who\u2019s looking at him from the bench. Rod Laver in the stands. Tennis has the luxury of having three living legends in London along with 17,000 fans. Papa Robert in the audience, also his mother, his wife Mirka and the pair of twins.<\/span><\/p>\n

He stops Sock\u2019s returned ball dead in its tracks with the backhand. Second serve. It is a delicatessen\u00a0of the Swiss who still remembers using the racket. In his career he changed rackets 13 times. In the first set the Europeans broke with 5-4 up. In the second there will be a break per side and a tiebreak for the youngest. And to break the tie by 10 points, with the super tiebreaker.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tiafoe walked across the field to greet Nadal, who narrowly returned a ball behind the net. The Helvetian is like out of coverage. He doesn\u2019t get hooked up front. He draws the racket slowly but invents an ace to make it 6-5 in the super tiebreak.<\/span><\/p>\n