I think we begin at the end.
Roger Federer loses the Wimbledon final to Novak Djokovic in 4 sets, 7-6, 6-7, 6-4, 6-3.
In a piece that aired before Federer's semi-final match against Andy Murray, ESPN commentator Jason Goodall says that, if anything, Federer is playing better than he was in 2003, when he first won Wimbledon. Goodall even has some pretty sophisticated data to back it up.
At the end of that segment, when they cut back to the commentators in the studio, one of them briefly mentions that Federer's success this year is despite the change in the court surface, which has slowed the game and caused the ball to bounce higher. All the studio commentators agree that the higher bounce plays into the hands of his rivals.
Still in reverse chronology: The first I ever heard of this slowing of the courts in tennis's major tournaments was a piece by Brian Phillips on Grantland from June 19th, 2013. In it, though Phillips notes that Federer won all of his major tournaments after this process of slowing the courts was well underway, he asks, "Is [Federer's] cool, thoughtful game actually helped by slightly slower play? Or is he such a phenomenal talent that he won 17 majors while the organizers of his own sport were essentially working to help his biggest rival?"
Now let's fast-forward, to I think it was just before the match began, when Chris Fowler, John McEnroe and Patrick McEnroe mentioned how strongly the crowd was in favor of Federer, and how hard that must be for Djokovic.
And I thought about that the whole match long. Because I felt the same way. I wanted Federer to win so badly I realized I was expending energy trying to influence the outcome.
(Which is maybe slightly silly, because Boulder, CO, is 4,700 miles away from London, England, and because I was watching hours after the match had actually ended. Energetic effects may travel over great distances and even forward and backward in time, but...it's still probably not the most effective use of one's energy, don't you think?)
So let's go back to the end. Djokovic won 7-6, 6-7, 6-4, 6-3. I wanted Federer to win so badly that I woke up in the middle of the night and felt a wistful sadness sweep through me like a breeze. Match reports today use phrases like "ruthless efficiency." Brian Phillips describes Djokovic as cyborg-ian. Which all leads me back to this: while I was watching, I thought a lot about what it is about Djokovic and what it is about Federer that had Federer by far the fan (and my) favorite. By all indications, Federer is a nice, sort of aloof fellow who plays tennis spectacularly well. By all indications, Djokovic is a friendly guy who plays tennis spectacularly well. If anything, Djokovic appears to be more immediately likable--as a person, anyway--than Federer.
Which suggests that one of two things explains Federer's greater popularity. One possibility is that he's won more Grand Slams than anyone else ever (among the men, anyway), that he's pretty consistently called the best tennis player ever, and so he's the sentimental choice. People want to see him win one more major because he's getting old (he's a few weeks from 34 now, whereas Djokovic recently turned 28) and every year that passes it becomes less likely. Please, Roger, we're saying, win one more and stave off my fears of my own mortality for a little longer.
And I'm sure that plays a part of it, but I think the greater part is the second thing, which is that Federer's tennis is by far the more beautiful. Federer plays tennis like a musician, the angles and spins of his shots dashing off with Mozartian exuberance. He plays like a dancer, with the racquet as his partner. His shots are so beautiful, I'd marry them.
Djokovic, on the other hand, plays like a machine built not just to play tennis but to put to rest any further arguments about which is superior, flesh or metal. It's beautiful the way modern war weapons are beautiful. His shots are like laser-guided.
Throughout the match, I kept thinking back to the announcers pointing out that Federer is by far the more popular player, that the crowd, at the event and elsewhere, was very much rooting for him. And I kept thinking back, too, to Brian Phillips' piece about how Wimbledon has slowed down so much over the years, diluting Federer's strengths and playing up Djokovic's. And I kept wondering if maybe the tennis powers-that-be did the wrong thing. Now, Djokovic beat Federer pretty soundly over the last two sets, and so perhaps it wouldn't have mattered if Wimbledon were still played on the surface of old. Perhaps it wouldn't have mattered if they played Wimbledon on a surface of polished mirror. Perhaps Djokovic, six years younger in a sport that sees its age-related decline hit earlier and more sharply than most, would have prevailed no matter what.
But if that's not the case--if the boundaries that define the game have been tweaked such that the fans' favorite loses, and in a slightly different world--a slightly different world that we could easily create--it would have been the other way around, and the victor would have been the player who played more beautifully, then hasn't something greater been lost?