Ms. Levin completed a manuscript about her life as a tennis fan and player (Comeback) a few years ago. She picked up on the beauty of Roger Federer’s game early in his career and her text tells the story of her responsiveness to him. What follows are Federer-focused passages from her tennis memoir. Take it as her tribute to Federer in the wake of his inspired performance at Wimbledon this year.
Love and Tennis
You don’t have to travel the globe, wear a tennis net over your head, or wave flags to be part of the fraternity of fanatics. From January 1st to mid-November, I bring up my scoreboard on my Dell screen before I brush my teeth. During the Slams, I live an extreme version of how I comport myself the rest of the year: no plans; no movies; no books. I cancel the house cleaners and let the dust balls rock and roll. For the French and Wimbledon I rise before 3 a.m., and head off to sleep as soon as my husband Bob finishes dinner. I completely reverse my circadian rhythms during the Australian summer season. Melbourne is seventeen hours ahead, so I go to bed at 4 a.m., or whenever the last match is completed, catch a few hours shut-eye, and rise at 9 a.m. for more tape delayed television coverage. I read all the tennis magazines and on-line zines, copy/paste the best of what I find to my friend Palma, spend hours arguing my points at five different tennis forums. What begins as excitement spirals out of control. First week runny, itchy eyes become broken capillary red-eyes. I have weight loss; migraines; laundry piled to the ceiling; dirty hair; nothing to say to Bob besides tennis scores, tennis gossip, and my latest theory about Roger Federer. Bob doesn’t complain much, but it’s no fun for him to come home to a yawn and cold supper…
How much choice is involved in falling in love? When Bob walked into Professor Evans’s writing class in 1963, I loved the way he looked in his black jeans, long and lean, the way his shoulders squared in his t-shirt, his dark hair, sensitive face, and soft brown eyes. When he spoke, I loved his voice and intelligence; and when I read his short story a week later, I was stricken. It was nearly love at first sight with Roger Federer, too.
I first saw him play an entire match on TV at the US Open 2000, where, in the second round, he lost to Juan Carlos Ferrero. Both had turned pro in 1998 and were on the rise. RF was ranked No. 40, and JCF No. 14. Juan Carlos was one year older, at twenty, and already owned a tournament win in Majorca. Roger wouldn’t notch his first title until Milan 2001. Roger was tall and lithe, his long hair slicked back straight in a pony tail, additionally secured with a hand-rolled bandana that bisected his forehead. When he struck the ball, the word “beautiful” came to mind. I’m a sucker for a one-handed backhand, and his finish, arms spread wide and high, head absolutely still, was suck-in-your-breath-and-whistle gorgeous. Perhaps, Juan Carlos was the better-looking; his long, thin nose, high cheekbones, and dark eyes resembled El Greco’s exquisitely etched saints, but, Roger with his rugged, bunchy-on-the-bottom nose, looked good enough to me. He was/is my tennis dream incarnate. I told Bob Roger was the only man I would leave him for. He nodded, paused and said, “And Bob Dylan is the only man I’d leave you for.”
It had to be more than coincidence that soon after Roger Federer became my favorite player of all time, I had picked up a racket, again. I wondered why he had empowered me? Why did watching perfection inspire, rather than discourage? What did having a favorite, win or lose, do for me? The beauty of Roger’s game was what I’d imagined tennis might be, and the coupling with Roger’s pursuit of his dream gave me a feeling of strength lacking in my own life. My fandom grew and filled the space I’d given up in the professional world, and the players became my children and grand-children. I loved having an adult passion, with roots going back into each decade of my life. As fan and player, sports had provided a place to be when life seemed too hard. Even now, I needed my fandom, for its positives and fun, and as a cave, where I live alone—with sad ghosts and bright spirits of my past.
Chaos Theory
I wanted to learn everything I could about Roger Federer. I even started a gallery of pictures of him on the wall behind my computer. When he won a game or point, I could see future dominance in the controlled precision of his slashing forehand that wrapped around his body like a translucent scarf. He had every shot, all the spins. “Players like that take a while to develop: they have so many choices of what to hit,” I argued to nay-sayers at one of my forums. The early rap on Roger was that he lacked self-confidence. I wondered if that would be his Achilles heel. He’d had a bad temper as a boy. His father had seen him go off during a match, hurl rackets and words and, then, losing, break down in tears. He told Roger something on the order of if he didn’t learn to control his temper, he wouldn’t be allowed to play. Z-Woman, my Internet tennis buddy, found his lack of selbvertraumen (self-confidence) endearing, at first, but thought he might never develop the mettle to be topnotch, and soon became critical of the whole package. “I don’t like broody types and don’t watch tennis for balletic sang-froid,” she said. “Give me my excitement and sweat straight up.” “Roger is going to be a great champion,” I said.
In 2003 I’d had a temper tantrum when he lost to David Nalbandian in the round of sixteen at the Australian Open. I wanted to put Nalbandian and his fans through a shredder. In that state of mind it is best to carefully close your computer. Instead, I’d gone to e-mail and mindlessly opened something titled, “New Martina Hingis Pictures” hoping to be gifted with a compensatory pleasure but, instead, watched a dozen laughing baboons race across my screen, throwing fingers and gobs of feces at me. I banged my knees leaping up from my desk chair. It took a computer geek a week to exorcize the worms and rebuild my data base.
When my computer was returned, I crossed “aggression” and “fandom” in my search engine. I found an article/interview with Maurice G. Marcus M.D., a psychoanalyst, speaking with Mary Tressl: “Superbowl Sunday: The Vicarious Pleasure of Violence,” posted at “The News Room” of the San Francisco Foundation for Psychoanalysis. His perspective on the vicissitudes of aggression in sports lit up dormant neural pathways in my brain. Aggression, a weak link in my awareness, became a new angle from which to understand my preferences. So although my fandom remained a solitary affair, its best moments, a state of enthrallment, like love, personal, biased, heart-wrenching but fun, I was aware that a percentage of Roger Federer’s appeal for me came from the way his aggression was wrapped, almost hidden, in beauty. The snap of his wrist created killer angles; the flourish of his stroke took my mind away from the slaughter and the dominance that was its purpose. Marcus claimed fan participation provided a valuable service to society, a safe outlet for primitive aggression. I felt relieved of some of the guilt for indulging my passion, knowing that as I rooted for Roger, and jeered Andy Roddick, collecting data to support my arguments and suffering dysphoria when disappointed, I was doing my part to keep chaos at bay.
Divinity in the Desert
In March 2003, Bob and I made pilgrimage to Indian Wells. Z-Woman had been raving about it for years. The desert tournament in Southern California was a combined Tier 1 for the women, and a Master’s Series event for the men, both just a notch below the majors in prestige. Since the Australian Open, Roger Federer had won Marseille, reached the semi-final in Rotterdam, and won again in Dubai. My number one wish was to see him. The trip was a birthday present from Bob. We had been to The Bank of the West, a smaller, women’s tournament a few times. I’d seen matches with Venus Williams, Lindsay Davenport, Jennifer Capriati, Lisa Raymond, Monica Seles, Patty Schnyder and Kim Clijsters but that was before I resumed playing tennis. Now I wondered if seeing the pros play in person would impact, even benefit, my own comeback and what I wrote about it. I had in mind an infusion of confidence from watching the men and women who simply exude, with reason (or not), the belief “My milkshake is better than yours.”
The first morning, before Bob awoke, air sweet, sights and sounds ripe fruit for the picking, I walked along the main drag, past condos and palm trees, towards the courts. From the distance the site looked like a medieval castle, a jewel atop a hill. A marsh, with its fringe of thistle and indigenous plant life, surrounded it like a moat, the final barrier between mundane reality and the kingdom of professional tennis. (I added the period Punctuation) Players and their coaches jogged by within inches. The young women, on average a head taller than me, wore teensy shorts low on their hip bones and skimpy sports bras. Many looked half asleep: their fast-twitch kicks and luminous pony-tails bounced like dreams in pursuit. The men ran in t-shirts that ballooned above the knee length shorts that were currently popular. It is impossible to exaggerate the beauty of these late teen and twenty-something elite athletes, their strong bones, toned muscles, and velvet skin, bred for the sport, by parents hungry for their children’s success, and nurtured by countries with programs to select and enhance natural ability. I shook my head in wonder at the improbable illusions of my youth, the act of imagining unchecked by reality, that I might breach the gap between them and me.
Later that morning, after Bob swam and we ate breakfast, we took the hotel shuttle to the Gardens. We walked around the site together in awe, stopping at each practice court to watch the players. On the butt-end court, reserved for clinics and club members, four old codgers in proper tennis gear played a set. They looked like mountain goats, skinny limbs, wizened skin, hairy creatures. This sudden intrusion of stiff backs, braced knees, wrapped wrists, and long pauses between first and second serves threatened my euphoria with the reminder of the undesired future I faced. I turned back quickly, as if lingering might damage the illusion of invincibility, if not immortality, I had paid for.
There was a buzz on the green as if a bee-hive had emptied, and the next group of players headed out for the practice courts. Cameras clicked; girls and boys with behemoth balls to be signed ran after their favorites; and teens, leggy, tanned and freckled, stars in their own lives, stared in awe. Most of the excitement was for the Americans, Andy Roddick and Jennifer Capriati, the adored, international star Guga Kuerten—and Roger Federer. I vibrated from head to toe at his sight.
Seeing him in person was a better rush than the first time I got stoned. Although ranked No. 4 in the world, he hadn’t yet gone deep at Indian Wells. His bags seemed to weigh heavily on him, as he walked across the green, as if filled with his unfulfilled potential. With Roger was his coach Peter Lundgren, a large man, red faced, bulging around the middle, and a young male hitting partner. When Roger was clear of the crowd, I ran up. He had warm eyes, long lashes, and, I thought, big dreams. My heart pounded.
“May I take your picture?” I saw a flicker of amusement at my throw-away.
I focused.
“Good luck!” I couldn’t speak another word.
Z had gone off to watch Andy Roddick practice, and Bob and I followed Roger. We planned to meet at Guga’s court.
We sat in the first row, behind his gear bags. We were shaded by a canopy and were soon joined by a dozen other fans. “This is the best present ever,” I said. Bob gave me a nice squeeze. I was exactly where I wanted.
Roger’s game is the ultimate in variety of pace and spin; and over the next half hour, he made sure everything worked. He grooved his groundies for a while, hitting deeper and deeper, but, even then, he alternated depth with short, incredible angles and took the net at whim. His hitting partner was sweating and breathing hard. Roger was not. He moved fast, gliding like a big cat, and always seemed to get to where the ball would be well ahead of it. He was simply beautiful to watch, the precision and balance, the upper body absolutely still for the second before and after he uncoiled a shot. The weight I felt on him as he approached the court had evaporated in play. His eyes, at moment of ball contact, were striking. They were not the Agassi laser-like, terrified expression of one who had been force fed balls in his crib and highchair, but had the soft insistent focus of a man with a gentler upbringing. His eyes caught the ball early and held firm, his head still as a stopped clock. There was an instant when his body looked like it might break, as his hips and legs transferred his weight into the shot, but then, before any damage was done, his head and upper body flowed through. Professional photos showed he struck the ball with such racquet head speed that it (the ball) was already gone from view.
We found Z-Woman at Guga’s court. “You look like you saw God,” she said.
Roger vs. Andy
By 2007, no reference to Roger went down easily between me and Z-Woman. We had started arguing about his stated goals for the season of winning all four majors and defending the twelve other titles he held before the first balls were struck at the Australian Open. Z hated dominance in all arenas—family, sports and politics—and argued Roger’s ascendency had ruined the men’s tour. She asserted his goals were arrogant, intimidating, and intentionally promoted an atmosphere of fear. I responded that Roger’s intentions seemed large but not unreasonable. I interpreted his excellence as a fact and a challenge to the other players to rise up and become better. When Roger said, “I surprised myself how well I played today,” or, “I always play better later in a tournament,” Z heard that as duplicitous self-conceit. I heard his words as honest self-assessment. As we argued more and more, we even disagreed as to who had started the battle. I had accused her of baiting me by saying Roger’s “withered” left arm made her sick to her stomach. She said, “I’m just getting back at you for saying Andy Roddick’s belly had made a comeback.”
To understand the tension with Z-Woman, I need to explain my relationship to Andy Roddick. Z couldn’t comprehend my lack of excitement. “What’s not to like? He’s cute, from the Mid-West, and has nice parents,” she’d said from her seat in the first car of the bandwagon in 2002. On court, I found plenty to fault with Andy. His game was unadulterated “Ugly American”: violent serve; bludgeoning forehand; and bomb-detonating overhead. His plan was simple-minded: serve big and rip a forehand winner. In his baggy clothes, with his heavy feet and his racket wielded like a broken-off tree limb, he reminded me of a cave-man, no disrespect to cavemen intended. Also, he played the crowd in an exhibitionistic and goofy way I found obnoxious. After a few years, lower ranked players had got onto his monster serve, chipped it back, attacked his game, and produced the occasional upset; but, to my dismay, he held onto his place in the upper echelons. I tried my best to hide these feelings from Z, but she saw through me, once noting my barely concealed delight following a humiliating Roddick loss to Federer. Was I so identified with Roger that Z’s dislike felt like an attack on me? I didn’t live close enough to Z to express my feelings in an anti-social fashion, but hostile fantasies of the ilk Dr. Marcus had described in his interview were active. After one unsatisfying exchange, I fantasized ripping the tail pipe off her RV.
For me, rooting against Andy was almost as much fun as rooting for Roger. I was not alone. The shape of his visor, the set of his mouth, his “web” feet, which some claimed resembled the waterfowl sub-family Anatidae, had led his fans to affectionately nickname him “Ducky.” They, were turned to other purposes by his detractors, inspiring “Who Will Roast the Duck?” threads, photo-shopped duck heads grafted on Roddick’s body, and duck bodies with his face. What made “Duck Roasting” so tasty to me was the teeth-aching fear that Andy’s game could defeat Roger, that pure might could beat sublimated aggression. (I’d watched it happen once, Andy over Roger at Montreal 2003: 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (3).)
When the season started, I made a game attempt to keep on with my own work, cook some dinners, get my sleep, and pick and choose which matches to watch from my tapes; but a week into the Australian Open, my good intentions faltered. I told myself, “I can handle one all-nighter!”—Federer vs Robredo, Roddick vs Fish—who could resist? I spent the rest of the week alternating caffeine and downers. Was it worth the temporary insanity, the loss of focus in the rest of my life? It seemed so.
Then, after Roger skewered Andy 6-0, 6-4, 6-2 in the semis Z-Woman absented herself from the Forum, and didn’t respond to my e-mails. Two days later, when Roger won his tenth Major, she didn’t even send a “You must be happy!” I was pissed, but, I knew, if Andy had beaten Roger in straights and picked up his third Australian Open trophy, I wouldn’t have been in a rush to contact her.
Closing Time
I had been looking for a way to end my book for years, and had hoped to do so with Roger winning Roland Garos in 2007. Should I blame Roger Federer for losing to Nadal at the French and not giving me his victory to hide behind as my closer? Would I spend the rest of my life explaining to others in engaging ways why I never finished my tennis memoir? My own wish to succeed—to finish my book—was all too clear and kicking up a red dirt tidal wave of anxiety…
I slogged through the days between Roland Garos and Wimbledon which began at 3 a.m. in Berkeley. I woke just in time, in the midst of a dream. In the dream, it was raining so hard the grass courts had turned to mud; and in a first round match, which I knew was really the final, Roger and Nadal went at it for five tough sets, the outcome still undecided. Another detail in the dream was my feeling of frustration as I tested the ground with my own feet. In general, dreams are about the dreamer’s hopes and fears expressed in pictorial symbols and, sometimes, words. That morning, mine followed me to the computer, where I found out the courts were covered. They had been uncovered once, but rain had returned; estimated next break in the weather—one hour.
The dream hung around, clung to me, asked questions. Would Nadal rain on Roger’s parade, or would Roger, on his favorite turf, defeat the King of Clay; and make it five Wimbledons in a row? In 2006, Nadal had reached the final and had taken a set off Roger. The media was all over it now. They were ready to claim Nadal as the true No. 1 if he won. Could Roger “rein” him in, keep his own “reign” alive, and tie Borg’s record five consecutive Wimbledon titles? How would the gloomy English weather impact the tournament? What did the “mud” signify? Humiliation and/or creativity? Was I dreaming about my book finding an ending in the rich soil, or was I going to find myself in deep shit?
My dream final—and everyone’s—was to be; Roger Federer vs Raphael Nadal. But the match was played under blue skies. Bob watched most of it with me and that helped. (A recent study has confirmed that a loving hand placed on the other during times of stress stabilizes blood pressure better than medication.) Roger had not dominated his matches quite the way he had the year before, but neither had he shown any of the spring’s fragility. Nadal had been intermittently vulnerable, had to go five sets twice. If Djokovic had not been injured, he might have gone another. I was hopeful and tense, expecting Nadal and Roger to be at their respective bests.
It was a great match; a few points this way or that and there would have been another outcome. Both men played at a high level, producing 225 minutes of entertainment any sports fan could have enjoyed, with edge-of-the-seat tension start to finish. Roger won the first set 7-6 (7); Nadal the second 4-6; Roger the third 7-6 (3); and Rafa the fourth 2-6. Even though Rafa took a medical time-out between the fourth and the fifth to have his troublesome knees worked on and wrapped, I would have bet the house he would win. In the fourth set, he had gone up 4-0, beating Roger off the ground, taking the net more often and more successfully, finding the corners on his serve with pace and depth. In the two sets he had won, he’d made only seven unforced errors, Roger had never been forced to a fifth set at Wimbledon. Roger, still on the cusp of his prime, faced a Nadal, who reached for the stars on a surface other than clay. I steeled myself with what I knew to be reality: each generation, falls prey to the best of the next. I prepared myself for heartbreak.
Fifth set: Roger served first and held. Nadal held. In Roger’s second service game, he went down 15-40 but saved both break points and held. Nadal held and, then, hitting winners off both wings, his clay court flourishes clipped a bit to add sting, seemed poised at 15-40 to get the decisive break. I groaned. Bob reached out a warm hand. Again, Roger saved both points and held. Roger pumped his fist. Then it came, in the sixth game, a second wind for Roger, the slightest let down in Rafa. Roger won the first point in a ground stroke rally and the second with a brilliant passing shot and the third with another forehand winner. At 0-40, Nadal saved one break point. The next began with two service lets. Roger hit a line with his return and Rafa another with his response. Then both men settled into a tactical maneuvering of the other for the tiniest advantage. Finally, Roger hit a short angled forehand, which was well returned, but two shots later with Rafa pulled out wide on his forehand, Roger hit a vicious forehand drive, inside-out, down-the-line—unreachable. Roger screamed, “Yes,” with a full pelvic thrust and roar. I’d like Maurice G. Marcus M.D., to know I fully appreciated Roger’s all out aggression on display. It wasn’t even beautiful. It was 4-2.
That last point pushed me to find an analogy; two wizards playing master chess, seeing the board’s squares as atoms in motion, and check-mate came at a point just beyond imagination. It had to have been that good for one of them to nose ahead. Even then, I could not relax. One more change of momentum and a different result seemed possible. Roger held serve, at love, for 5-2. In the next game, Rafa serving, still fighting, on the third deuce, a forehand error put Roger at championship point. A good rally developed. Rafa retrieved what looked to be a winner and lifted the ball back; but Roger, waiting, took one step forward and put away the overhead. He fell to the ground in tears. In his eyes, I saw relief.
The final score was: 7-6 (9/7), 4-6, 7-6(7/3), 2-6, 6-2.
Roger and Rafa met at the net, “You deserved the win today as much as I did,” Roger said. Rafa sat down, a towel over his head, feeling the disappointment. The match was of great significance to Roger. It set a spate of frustrations right. It was a piece of history accomplished, matching Borg’s record of five consecutive Wimbledon titles, and giving Roger his eleventh Major, bringing him closer to Pete Sampras’s record fourteen. Borg was present, and it was hard to read his expression, but he seemed to enjoy the match. His game more resembled Rafa’s, but he’d said that he’d be proud for a man like Roger to tie him. Roger spoke of the win, later, as a feeling of passing over into legend.
What struck me most was how different the two players had looked in their best moments. Roger often elevated off the ground, with the grace of a Baryshnikov, from his slender feet to his endearing curls, to knife a high backhand volley. Nadal excelled and astounded on the horizontal. There were pictures of him where, fully extended, he seemed to be a noble, four-footed animal drawing strength from the earth.
Later that day, I received an e-mail from another rabid fan of Roger’s: “How about that Final! At this point, I don’t care anymore who wins. I like Rafa as much as Roger. That shot he hit from the seat of his pants was absolutely ridiculous,” he said, describing Rafa’s winner off a shot from Roger that had hit the baseline with such velocity that it had knocked him off his feet as he returned it.
I admired Rafa, too. His warrior mentality and “lefty sneer” on court were replaced by a gorgeous smile, full of light and warmth, after the last point. It was transformation from Superman to humble, spirit person. His matches were always thrilling. But never would I root for him when he played Roger. I told my friend, “You are a tennis slut!”
Roger received the trophy with his long, white pants on backwards, suggesting he was more than a wee bit excited when he pulled them up. In his speech, he fully acknowledged Rafa’s excellence and his own good fortune to win that day. “I am glad to get one more before he wins them all.” That may be an overstatement, but it needed to be said. Rafa had made a deep impression on Roger and everyone who watched. Roger had once said, maybe not quite as arrogantly as Z-Woman and others interpreted it, that Rafa was a one-dimensional player; but in his speech and, later, in an interview, he called Rafa what he was; “A great champion.” Pants-on-backwards spoke of the vulnerability Roger felt in 2007, looking over his shoulder at the ascent of Nadal and others rising on their career paths, as he pursued his own dreams. The pants were a humanizing sight of the man, neither god nor goat. I hoped he laughed when he realized his error. The reversed pants symbolized the close call, winning at the last moment, a fifth set, by the back door. The “mistake” gave closure and extra cover to his private parts and represented how deep and precious the win was to him. Roger’s win gifted me with a way to end my book.
Would I abandon my fandom now? I thought not. No, I knew not. I couldn’t/wouldn’t give up my fandom. It was part of me, part of our family.
After the match, Bob and I rejoiced. We cried and cheered and made love to celebrate. I waived my chocolate limit for twenty-four hours. I wore my underpants backwards for the rest of the day, just to know the feeling. I am a great tennis fan.
Roots and Fruits
I expect my tennis fandom will last a lifetime, but when Roger Federer exits, I will retire the category of favorite player of all time. I’ll always have a good root-and-boo for someone, but I don’t need another one-and-only. My need for an ideal form in the shape of a person has been on the wane since I recognized my idol had inherited—and hidden—the excitement I had once felt for my father. I had forgotten it, or seen no connection between it and my fandom, except in my vaguely wanting someone with power to share it with me. One day, while admiring a collection of photos of Roger’s hands and fingers—each digit perfectly formed, long and lean, the end notes to his strokes, like feathers on a bird’s wings—I had found myself thinking of my Dad. His hands were small and square like mine, his fingers were gnarled, and yet, as in a dream where opposites can mean the same thing, when I looked at Roger’s hands, I relived the exhilaration of watching my father listen to music. When he did, his fingers previewed it in the air and his arms waved as if he “conducted” at Symphony Hall. (My mother, an even earlier idolization of mine, had handwriting which was uniquely graceful, and I remember experiencing the same frisson when I studied her hands.) My mother’s fingers holding a pen, my father’s flying fingers and invisible baton and Roger’s hand wrapped around his magic racket: “Same thing!”
I had complained to Z-Woman about my difficulties writing the “Epilogue” to my book.
“I get so nervous when I type the word. I always spell it wrong. Some of them are classic, mix-matching parts of epitaph, eulogy, and apology: “pilogue”; “apitaph.” “Ewwwwpilogue,” I said, mocking myself. “Pilogue” makes me think of prologue (rather than ending I want to begin). The other side of “Yipologue” is Yippee, the happy feeling (wish) of a victorious finish. Finishing is always a colossal difficulty for me. I totally understand the pressure players feel closing out a set, or match, in that altered state of consciousness, conflicts surrounding aggression/assertion on stage, front and center. So I “yipilogize rather than jump for joy.”
She responded, “One time I did a ropes course and went up a really tall tree to stand upon a small, unprotected circle at the top. I ascended fine, but somehow, just before the end, I lost concentration and didn’t quite know where I was. But I refocused and reached the top and standing there was terrific. Anyway, the lesson is that pressing on is important.”
I‘d like to thank “Z-Woman” (Christina) for her friendship, wisdom and fun—though she never rooted for Roger Federer.
From July, 2014