God, make me the perfect tennis player please

Make me the perfect tennis player. The kind of player that the world will never, ever see again after my time is over. The kind of a player that will ensure noises comprising ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ when I play. The kind of player that would make royalty feel like the common man. Make me someone whose movement would make running seem like gliding. Make me someone who’d have that uncanny ability to make the split second before the ball is struck freeze, so the game of tennis seems as easy as judging a Justin Beiber song from a scale of pathetic to kill myself.

If you’d like me to be more specific God, I’ll help you out. I’ll start off with groundstrokes.

Give me the forehand of Rafael Nadal. Let my forehand have that devastating trademark of looping into the court no matter where it’s struck from. I’d like this particular wing to have the kind of reach that makes attempting to wrong foot me towards my FH side immaterial. Just as Rafa has a choice whether he wants to hit a typical 3000 RPM topspin forehand that requires his opposition to move ten miles behind the net to try and hit it, or hit a flat powerpacked forehand that requires a 3000 FPS to see it in slow motion, I too would want both those qualities in this stroke.

It was tough to decide, but break down my backhand to be a mixture of Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray. Give me the innate sense of counter-punching Murray has been gifted with. Where he can lower his shoulder and twitch his wrist to make the ball fly for a clean winner. I’d also want Djokovic’s ability to stand like a rock and stretch like a reticulated python before striking a ball that would require any other tennis player to take at least a two-step sprint, near the far backhand corner of the court. I sometimes look at how Djokovic steps towards a ball top-spinning two feet above his shoulder, instead of running back and calmly proceeds to hit it wherever he wants and I question physics. Let me do all this with the grace of Richard Gasquet, who’s backhand is to tennis followers what Megan Fox is for software engineers. Names such as Marat Safin and David Nalbandian creep into my mind while discussing this wing, but I’m sure the added qualities of the above mentioned three athletes would make the stroke fairly impenetrable.

It would be highly irregular, but the slice should do what Stephanie Graf does from the moment she decides to weave magic off that stroke to the end. Yes, I know we’re making the best male player here but I feel that her level of mastery with this stroke is second to none, in both men and women. I’d insult the game if I asked you to even consider anyone else.