Larger Than Life

237, weeks in a row as ATP number one. 18, won slams, 6, ATP finals. 27, slam finals. 1 Olympic gold medal, 1 Olympic silver medal and 1 Davis cup. 1081, won games. 89, championships. 24, won 1000 masters and 24 250 ATP. 17, 500 ATP. 35, years in august 2016.

But about numbers - anyone needs to piss off - ee don’t mind. They are so important, of course. But they also are impersonal, no romantic; they can explain how great a man has been, but it would be a recap, no more.

Federer is the greatest player of all time. If anyone says otherwise probably he is lying or he couldn’t distinguish tennis and badminton. Even people who don’t love him have to acknowledge that. The minimum required knowledge about that “invented by the devil” game is enough to say that. Of course, any kind of those radicalisms like “after him tennis will be dead” is allowed. No, it won’t. There are already great players and others will be born. But we need to wait, maybe an endless time, before another one as Federer came out.

Federer owned every single physics concept and he modified as he wished. He showed as the time is a victim by who can just understand and conceive his own willpower. He beat everything, everyone, starting from himself, fixing any issue or come out lack. He reached stylistic perfection, he broke it down, after he created another one making it his own. He has been powerful, he has been wonderful, he has been weak and arrogant. He has been an out of time player, because He played an unthinkable sport in an aggressive and violent age he lived, and because interferences of his greatness branch out in the past and to the future. They influence both who played, plays and will play tennis, both Who enjoyed, enjoys and will enjoy tennis.

But is not possible to close Federer magnificence into words or rows, probably an essay theology would be not enough – indeed David Foster Wallace, who before and better than anyone else understood his uniqueness, talked about “religious experience”. American writer was the only one who also understood as the best way to explain why Federer is so important for world sport could not be writing a biography or talking about his way to play tennis. But just describing a single point, jointed and complicated, won by the Swiss guy. A crest, something that explains what tennis is: sweaty chest that ask You to make something instinctive rationally, just unnatural. And the reason why Federer is the greatest of all time.

1,28 minute in the video.
The point is not so long, and the game is not a slam final. Just a tie-break first set point in ATP finals tour. Federer is beating, so He could control the rally since it begins. The beat is violent and full of inside effect. Djokovic has to stretch himself trying to strike as best as he can, indeed the result is a slow middle-high reply. Federer has the time to move on the left – his typical forehand movement, like a dance – striking the ball in cross kick. But he hit the ball in Nole direction instead; it seems like he didn’t want to close the rally, but going on. In situations like that, great Federer’s opponents – Djokovic and Nadal – would be in their best, because They hit the ball to pass through. And that’s what Nole decides to do, He strikes the ball from the bottom, having the elbow so high risking too much effect. But the shot passes the net and almost makes the point, because Roger was stuck in the other side of the field not covering the whole opposing’s view.

But, indeed, Nole almost did.

Federer knows how much effect the ball has, indeed once it would have touched the ground He would have not reached it anymore. So he decides to hit it with stretch up vole and a splits; He also can turn the effect on his side: the get back ball touches the floor and bounces low and horizontal. But the Serbian guy is a known physical prodigy, he gets back and he also makes a wonderful shot headed to Federer’s behind. Federer has to turnaround not completely in back, because Nole has closed almost the Federer’s whole view, so the Swiss guy needs to know where he has to shot the ball.

But, indeed, once again, almost the view. There is a small space on the Djokovic right, completely available; it is so small that Nole obviously doesn’t care, and then the way Federer will have to run toward the ball doesn’t allow him to find that line, just a pass through on Serbian side, where Djokovic is ready to push the ball down. Instead Federer reaches the ball waiting it was on his knee high and he shots it exactly where the Serbian guy cannot arrive. The hit is not so strong but it passes through. It passes through because in that moment, in that second, it was the only far away and possible thing. So far away that anyone else thought about that, anyone else but Federer, who can make something We cannot even think.

The rally has lasted 10 seconds.

So short-lived that the commentator stays in silence for the whole time. Then He just says “U gotta be kiddin’ me!”. Federer has had less than 2 seconds to think about solution and to make the winning one.

In 2 seconds is not possible making something aware. But in that situation is not possible to choose the violent and aggressive shot neither.

There is a small place, so tightened, where the awareness meets the instinct.

In that place Federer lives since He was 6 years old.