A Few Thoughts
I've been thinking of a bunch of things.
Over the past two weeks, I've taken mom and supra out, to do some activity!
We've done go-karting and then pickleball.
Pickleball was fun, and I understand where the appeal of the sport is. It's easy to pick up, easier to grow and also manage stamina. And pickleball was a wake up call.
Yes, I'm fat, I use to be so much more agile, but not anymore.
I understand why tennis is so appreciated.
Tennis has never appealed as a sport to me. I mean it's an extension of badminton, and you're just running from one end of the baseline to another, so what's the big deal?
It seems just stupid to appreciate a sport like that.
Yet, Federer and Boris Becker were the examples floated whenever we had to behave better.
I never seemed to understand this. Foster-Wallace had written an ode to Federer's version of the game. Wimbeldon centre-court was something we'd all known.
And, as I played pickleball, I had a glimpse of how beautiful of a sport tennis is.
To read and gauge the direction of a shot coming at over 100mph, to read your opponent and figure out their weaknesses in split seconds, to skill required to place a shot, exactly where and when you desire it while adapting to the nature of the court. Tennis is a sport that involves the limbs and the mind.
But it's also one of the only sports where the mental dominates the physical.
As in any sport, accelarated aging is a curse that athletes accept. This is why, as an athlete crosses 30, pundits write them off as they gradually fade into the abyss.
Yet, as I look at Novak and Roger, they run contrary to this notion. Pushing 40, Novak seems to be at his prime. Someone who wasn't a strong favorite, had just managed to play a 5+ hour game against someone 15 years younger, and yet, managed to emerge victorious.
And this awe isn't just mine alone. It takes only a moment to discover numerous podcasts of former players speaking of the Big Three. Agassi, Roddick, Becker, Bjorn, all of them talking of Roger, Rafa and Djoko. And the way they describe of them, is like as though hearing poetry in motion.
For them, each of the three's gameplay represented something that was transcedental. Federer's fluidity, Djoko's grit and Rafa's sheer brute force, to be witnessed while playing against is spoken of as a privilege.
And to think of the investment behind this?
One can only wonder.
For me, they all point to one direction. Re-invention. Federer's hurrah in 2017 and his continued playing till 2019. Novak and the beast he is now, aren't just a consequence of conditioning, but a consistent re-invention to stay relevant.
Stay relevant?
That doesn't sound right.
To adapt to the changing nature of the game.
At 20, Federer is raw, bursting with energy and a serve-volley approach. At 25, he's playing at the baseline with a mastered forehand and a beautiful slice. At 30, he's refined everything, his armada now filled with experience of multiple games, multiple datapoints allowing him to play adaptively for every situation as younger players come onto the scene.
Re-invention is big. To have the humility to re-invent?
I need to learn a lot from them, my naivety and hubris driving me to think too highly of myself. If Novak keeps trying to re-invent himself at 40, why can't you?