As a fan of Roger Federer, it’s hard to love Rafael Nadal. And vice versa. That’s what I notice in tennis spectators. Both players have such huge charisma that being on one side cannot be on the other side.

Palm sugar genius

Federer entered tennis and quickly stuck in viewers’ heads as the new standard of a sports athlete. Before that, we only saw strength, precision, endurance, and endurance in athletes. Along with Federer, elegance and grace entered the courts, changed sports, brought new concepts to sports, and spread what sports often lack, which is beauty.

In London, Paris, New York or anywhere, in the sunset, the most glorious moment of the day, to see Federer swing his hand to hit a left shot, as if drawing a stroke of genius in the air, must be a pleasure for anyone. , whether that person is into tennis or not. Federer draws on people’s imagination like that.

Before Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart there were many musicians, before Vincent Van Gogh there were many painters, before Jean Jacques Rousseau there were many thinkers. Just like before, Federer had tens of thousands of professional tennis players. But what do they have in common? They bring enlightenment in their field.

Any standard is always a target for attack and destruction. This is not negative at all. Records are born to be broken, standards are born to be surpassed, that is the argument of development. Rafael Nadal appeared to satisfy that wish. And those who love Nadal are also not negative because of that.

The legendary trio of “Open Era”

Nadal brings new dimensions to tennis. The devilish spins, the stances that don’t follow textbooks, the swings of arms around the head that challenge every joint of the body. God really cleverly arranges pairs of natural enemies. To overcome a comprehensiveness, something unusual is needed, unprecedented in books.

Nadal’s appearance is a motivation for Federer to upgrade himself. But during that upgrade journey, even though his body was bruised and his mind was tortured through defeats to his opponents, Federer determined not to give up the beauty of his playing style in exchange for other methods. In other words, you cannot give up beauty. Or to put it another way, beauty refused to leave him. It’s in your instincts, in your DNA, clinging to your soul.

On the tennis court, Federer is a thief of time, Nadal is a thief of space. Fast, faster, fast like an express train is his specialty. Boom, one more shot, boom, point. In amateur tennis courts, shots are called “losing the ball”. Just now, the ball has disappeared.

As for space boss Nadal, his spine-twisting cross-court shots or swinging the ball along the string are beyond his opponents’ expectations. It sends the ball into spaces where opponents can only stand and watch helplessly: “How can you put the ball there? How can you twist your back like that?”…

Then, God himself once again created Novak Djokovic to defeat both Federer and Nadal, not by the characteristics of space, not by the characteristics of time, but by both mixed together, with his tendons. The muscles are as durable as a coil of rope. The ball came to Djokovic as if it were going to a wall. And walls rarely go wrong. The harder you hit the ball against the wall, the harder it bounces back towards you.

However, Djokovic’s followers are only considered “fans of the movement”, sorry to say. Because before Djokovic came up, most tennis lovers had already chosen one of the two extremes, either Federer or Nadal.

Crazy about Federer but can’t joke with Nadal

It seems that a tennis fan is quite different from a soccer fan. Or maybe, it’s still the same guy, when he cheers for a tennis player it’s different from when he cheers for a football team. Because of the atmosphere, of course, the noisier the football field, the better, to make your chest swell and scream. As for the tennis court, the quieter the better, hold your breath to perceive each ball, and not distract the athletes.

For the purpose, of course, he comes to the football field with the mission of cheering for the community, locality, and country. The tennis personal playground does not carry much of that weight. Because naturally, it must be like that. Isn’t it true that people say that the older we get, the smaller our favorite soccer game is? When we are young, we like intense and noisy subjects. When we are older, we want to find quieter places.

When you support a team, you can freely demean, tease, joke, and mock the rival team. Because that team is a collection of dozens of individuals, not aimed at any specific individual. Because the players are quite promiscuous and have a lot of thorns in their personalities (he is talking compared to tennis players). And those dozens of thorns collide with each other every day.

As a tennis player, if you want to reach the top, you can’t do that. It must be said that tennis is a game full of pressure from things like: never making a double serve error, never missing a shot too easily, having to go out there and fight alone, having to overcome injuries to win. Keep fighting because no one can replace you, having to move alone from one country to another, having to strive week after week to climb each position on the rankings.

You can’t go to a bar tonight, but still have hope of winning against another competitor the next day. You can’t have a glamorous lifestyle surrounded by beautiful women while still keeping the goal of being in the top 200, top 100, top 50.

Football has a level of indulgence that tennis cannot have. It is shown right in the scoring method of the game. In soccer, when his team dominated and shot 10 shots over the crossbar, the score was still 0-0. In tennis, you dominate your opponent, you hit out 10 times, you lose 10 points, you are already far behind. Then he became more and more mentally depressed, his body seemed to be pressed against a thousand mountains.

Because of the above, cheering in tennis is very different. Even though he is crazy about Federer, it is also very difficult for him to make fun of and mock Nadal. And vice versa. Even Nadal’s rather strange behavior, picking up his pants and wiping his nose, was once the subject of jokes, but after that, not many people felt uncomfortable with it. Because after seeing it, I get used to it. And because those movements are a kind of ritual for Nadal, and he always performs them with reverence, an infectious reverence.

A Federer supporter like me, began to rejoice in the beauty of his play, with his achievements, with his records. Then disappointed with his losses against Nadal. Then, with a bit of naivety, the enthusiasts also put themselves in Federer’s position, to find a way to neutralize Nadal’s gong loops that bounced 2 meters high on Federer’s backhand. Then there is more doubt that Federer’s records will one day be broken.

Growing up with Federer’s tennis

In satisfaction there is pain, in love there is disappointment, in affirmation there is doubt, in passion there is evil. I watch Nadal more closely, to cheer for his opponents, match by match. My desire for Federer to improve his records is equal to my desire for Nadal not to reach the trophies. But gradually, the latter’s will became stronger as age increasingly spread heat on the back of Federer’s neck.

Then, years later, that day came, Nadal and then Djokovic surpassed Federer in each achievement category. Am I disappointed? A little bit. Now, absolutely not. I grew up with Federer’s tennis. It’s the kind of tennis that teaches us that all records can be broken, but beauty is eternal. It teaches us to perceive limits, and in beauty there is always imperfection, it is impossible to have flawless beauty. It teaches us not to try to trade everything for victory.

I still want to watch Federer play, watch his calm, delicate, magical swings. But at Wimbledon, he did not appear. Then the day he announced his retirement from the field arrived, earlier than everyone expected. But I’m not sad. Federer has been with me through my youth, and that of many others, now it’s time for him to rest. I guess it’s not just to take care of your billion-dollar fortune.

I sat there imagining myself standing on the soccer field, stepping up with my right foot, turning my shoulders, bringing the racket back, lowering my body, then pulling the racket to draw an arc into the sky, the ball going diagonally to the end of the field. A pure left kick. Pure tennis. Federer’s smile flashed through my mind. Adrenaline (a hormone whose effect is based on the activity of sympathetic nerves, produced by the body when people feel fear, anger or feelings of happiness, excitement…) flows out from the back of the occiput. me, a small but satisfying moment that I always want to return again, again, again, again…