I won a lot and I want to thank you for loving me unconditionally all these years. But now that I am 34, I am big enough to explain to you all what the court failed to tell you.
I am Roger Federer and today I feel the need to start with an apology. I didn’t live my life mostly having to apologize. I always preferred to thank. I have been thankful for this amazing talent I have been given by nature to hold a tennis racquet, the same way I have thanked that elder American for not having hated me and wished me worse when I took his green scepter away from him in 2001. I have even been thankful to Rafael Nadal – yes Rafa himself – for forcing me to improve when I thought what I already had would have been enough until the very last day of my career to keep on winning. And today I thank that good man with the backhand volley for having me discover a second or even third youth to my game, for having facing the limits my age was bringing, for making me understand that I had to get closer to my opponent in the court to improve my chances of beating him.
I didn’t cope very well with the defeats of my early 20s, because I always strongly believed, sometimes too much, in the magic of my right arm. Fifteen years have gone by and I am still dependent on the purity of my gesture, of my perfect half-volley and I do not accept that someone could beat me without being better than me. That you can be strong without being good, I can’t accept that. And for my being selfishness I apologize. Some people wrote that I can’t recognize my talent because those who excel with one art do it naturally like someone who is not aware of the difficult execution. I apologize to those too, as I have to go against their believe. That is because I am a slave to that talent, I am a slave to knowing I am too good to bend and start playing like the others.
There was a time when I didn’t need to compromise and I was able to win at my conditions. Always, everywhere, sometimes it seemed even too easy. Yes, I know, not exactly everywhere, how do you think I can forget that? But there, there was nothing much I could do more. I was too high on success to understand that I could play differently and that there was no way I could beat that guy under those laws other opponents just simply respected. I was stubborn not wanting to drop off nor climb up. I was blocked on the edge of a challenge I couldn’t overcome or win, but I didn’t know it back then. He ended up becoming a companion of mine, an obsession tied only by the defeats he kept inflicting me.
There were then the times of the fall from grace. That dark year that seemed to never come to an end. The nerves challenged by all those missed shots I wasn’t accustomed to. For all those balls I missed hitting in the stands I apologize, but I still do not want to succumb to the ticking clock of the years passing by. After some confusion with racquets I have found myself again. A blonde angel helped my run forward and I got back to playing tennis my way. I came back to be the best, but it seems not the strongest.
Today I am 34 and I am the only rival to that gentleman some want me to fight off court with. Sometimes they manage to get us to do it. But I would like to beat him more often, especially where it matters the most. And if I don’t manage to achieve that, I apologize to my fans, who are always supporting me anywhere I go and against any opponent, always many. And if sometimes my fans are too much, too passionate, too loud, I apologize to my opponents and to their fans. It is not my fault. Even if being praised has always made me happy, the not-so-modest satisfaction lies under the mask of humbleness and now under that veil of beard I can finally show off.
The final I lost on that Sunday, the last Sunday of my 2015 year, did hurt me. And not because I fooled myself thinking I could beat him more than my ego already does on a regular basis, but rather because I would have wanted to see me strong on the court of the strongest. I wanted to win to honor the cheers, that I myself recognize as blind, surreal, but that I do depend on. And that is way I will try again next year, once again on my terms. And even if I think that will not be enough, I apologize in advance for that too, I don’t seem to find a good reason to change.
I will reconsider it all from the start. If I haven’t been able to push myself over that pride of a player who tends to achieve stylistic perfection, I apologize to those who would have wanted me more cynic, a better calculator, someone more Machiavellian. Life gave me so much and I always believed it was right to do what I wanted to do with what I had been given. My certainty engraved with the cheers and praises, every day coming more frequent.
I apologize to you all but I can’t stop doing what I do because I am Roger Federer and I was born to give the racquet instructions to do those all those things she thought she couldn’t do.
Written by Alessandro Stella and translated by Ivan Pasquariello
