His unsurpassed total of 20 Grand Slams was surpassed, first by Rafael Nadal and then by Novak Djokovic, but again the official word was that he would be back. Was so much invested in him that the belief of a comeback had to be kept alive, even as it looked increasingly unlikely? The eschatological and the economic had become difficult to disentangle. However, we wanted a chance to show our love at Wimbledon next year, something ceremonial instead of this slow and invisible fade. We can list the elements of Federer’s appeal in ascending order of importance. Play fast. Watching Nadal has become an ordeal, with these endless rituals between points. for Federer, a few bounces of the ball and he was ready. He was uncompromisingly aggressive, the opposite of run of the mill, always trying to score points. He was also the cutest player ever – Baryshnikov in sneakers, as the McEnroe brothers put it. His game was often described as effortless, but seeing him up close and in the flesh made you realize how hard he had to work to create that illusion of ease. The most beautiful element of his game was his one-handed backhand. He and Richard Gasquet saved the one-handed from extinction to the extent that, like some endangered species released back into the wild, it is now alive and thriving in the men’s game. Andre Agassi once said that tennis is about weakness – and Federer had none. That’s why, after taking his first title at Wimbledon in 2003, he won everything – except the French. It turned out that under Nadal’s relentless scrutiny, this graceful backhand was susceptible to pressure and, like many beautiful things, could become brittle. And so the aura of invincibility was dulled. He was both the greatest player of all time – and a winner. Federer was still the player people wanted to see the most, but it seemed inevitable that he would lose out to Nadal or Djokovic. He continued to play because, unlike Agassi, he not only loved playing tennis, he loved everything about the tour, he loved being loved and finding new ways to monetize that love. Having achieved ultimate grace in action, he became graceful in defeat. At Wimbledon in 2003 he was just a great tennis player with a freckled face and a ponytail. over the years he became charming, funny, famously nice to everyone. And then, after a first round of knee surgery, came the magnificent year of 2017, when he beat Nadal in the Australian Open final, hitting shoulder-length backhand winners on his opponent’s fearsome forehand. Titles followed in Indian Wells, Miami, Wimbledon and, the following year, again in Australia. Our ability to appreciate what we saw had improved. was it possible he was also playing better than ever? Either way, we were privileged witnesses to a happy phase where the most aesthetically pleasing game was also the most effective. Tennis as an ideal – of play and behavior – had been realized. He had two match points in the fifth set against Djokovic at Wimbledon in 2020, but failed to convert them (or Djokovic saved them), and the contented ideal gave way to an agonizing “if only…”. I wonder: it’s the newly crowned US Open champion and world No. 1, Carlos Alcaraz, already feeling this a little bit, thinking to himself: if I had the chance to play Federer.
