Roger Federer: The ageing dancer

- this backdated post has been shifted here from Facebook as an idea of what's to be expected on the "sport" page! -

Wimbledon 2017 - Final
Roger Federer v Marin Cilic
(6-3, 6-1, 6-4)

Tonight his ageing feet remembered a dance step - and dance he did.

In recent years Federer has borne the image of a tired hero riding off into the sunset. Except this year, at 35, he fought his way into the Wimbledon final for the 11th time, having earlier stunned fans by winning the Australian Open back in January. He has challenged the assumed narrative; he has found the dawn in the dusk; he ensures this piece is not so much one on sport as much as it is about a man defying Time.

Poets have long made the trope of Time one of their greatest fascinations. At the onset of his decline Federer was himself dubbed the 'misspelling poet'. For periods, he has looked like the perennial frustrated artist. Yet in 2017 he has done all but passively accept mortality like Dickinson - no, in every one-handed backhand gift of a spectacle he's like Thomas raging against the dying of the light.

I watch and play football, basketball, and (sometimes) table tennis, but tennis is that sport I watch but have never played. That means my awe may be overstated - like that of a tourist marveling at the sight of the Merlion, which isn't actually that majestic. Conversely, it could be understated, since I have absolutely no idea just how difficult it is for Federer to execute those deft flicks (that's if it's possible to comprehend at all).

What I do know, is that some of the best writing I've ever read have appeared in columns on Federer's exploits - written for print or online by the likes of Phillips, Wallace, Shekhar, and locally, Brijnath. These writers are legends themselves, but sometimes I wonder if the beauty of their writing is merely a corollary of the man's craft, which alone ensures that any piece written on him automatically summons the best words and transposes them into the best order. When I watch him, this seems highly probable. Writing about Federer isn't hard. Not when he plays with such embroidery and such invention. Not when he graces us all with an eternal elegance that privileges our very existence. Not when he inflicts to afflict. Not when he affects to effect.

Teachers or editors that I've worked with often said that sometimes my writing meanders its way about, and that it's a lot of passion but no point. I've very consciously tried to work on that ever since, but for this one time, I've not edited anything above, I've not set out to be concise - these words are all raw, and so is the emotion with which Federer plays.

The paradox of Wimbledon (and of Federer at Wimbledon), is that the craft, his craft - for those moments between services - commands a silence that honours the genius at play, and yet it is the same craft that sets the stands alight in raging applause when the point has been won. Wimbledon, where he has arguably been at his most successful in a 19-year career, is where an all-white dress code already lands players in a certain position of poise. Federer goes one further, and with an artistry of nerve and sinew, lands himself in the imagination of all who watch. Such is the capacity of his style to inspire and move that I'm very sure he must have made Theresa May - sat there in the stands today - feel, for the first time ever, what it's like to be human.

There comes a point when we will run out of tomorrows - that much we must accept - but then Federer has shown us that he still lives, aging feet and all, even if just today.

(Photo by AFP)