ROGER

Thanks to Australia being on the other side of the International Date Line and umpteen time zones away, the Australian Open tennis tournament was beamed to us in California one day earlier and late at night. So after my favorite TV shows were over I tuned in to watch the action from Melbourne. The Australian Open is one of 4 Grand Slam events in tennis. In other words, it’s big. I love watching the major or championship events of all sports. The reason I watch is because world class athlete’s and teams do amazing things when their goal is to be crowned as the best in the world at what they do. At the highest levels of competition truly memorable things can happen.

Roger Federer is right there as one of my favorite athletes ever. In any sport you want to name. It is a given that athletes at this level have great physical ability. Some were born with the right genes while others had lesser natural talent but with a lifetime of hard work and dogged pursuit of a goal, reached the top. Roger won the men’s title at this year’s Australian Open, as he has numerous other tournaments and Grand Slam events, so you know he has a good mix of the genes, talent and dogged pursuit. It is the other aspects of the man that capture my admiration.

He is the ultimate poker face. You can’t tell by looking at him if he just pulled off a miracle shot down the line or hit a sure winner into the net. Today’s TV technology provides such fantastic close-up images of a players face that he has no secrets. Every grimace, squint or blink is there for all to see. And yet, as hard as I try I cannot detect any inkling of what kind of shot Roger just hit. The announcers come unglued at what they just witnessed and there is Roger, dead pan as ever. It must drive his opponent batty.

Then, adding insult to injury, he proceeds on to the next point as if he’s playing with some friends on a Saturday afternoon. This goes on from the beginning of the match to the end. Whether he is falling behind or cruising you have no bloody idea. Once in a while there will be a feeble attempt at a fist pump if he just hit a shot for the archives to win a particularly contentious point, but not often. A wiping of his brow or tucking a lock of hair into his sweat band is about the extent of it.

Then between games he just sits there in his chair, looking straight ahead, as if he is part way through a good work out. Ho-hum, I wonder where we’ll go for dinner tonight. I am sure all of this nonchalance is due to a combination of his natural demeanor and a supreme confidence in his ability. A confidence borne of years of physical conditioning and practice, practice, practice to the point where, like all great champions, he knows he is prepared for that moment and that time and there is no one that can beat him.

He has the appearance of a cold blooded assassin yet as soon as he speaks you know he is a kind and gentle man (I have never met him but that is my feeling). His tournament winning acceptance speeches are the epitome of class and grace. Equally so in defeat. If you listen to the color commentators he has the respect of everyone in and around the game of tennis.

If I were to sit down and list all the qualities I admire in a man in and out of the arena of competition Roger Federer possesses most of them. I am thankful he came along in my time.