Your Honour, my client, Mr. Roger Federer, is not guilty

Your Honour, the charges my client, Roger Federer, of Switzerland, has been accused of for the past half a decade are heinous and defamatory. Other than being called a ‘bad clay court player’, and ‘Roland Garros challenged’, it shames me to even mention the last two epithets that have been used to tarnish his demeanour, those being ‘old’ and ‘losing his mojo’.

In most cases, your Honour, I would have to slowly build up the list of my client’s achievements to prove his worthiness and his spotless reputation. If I choose to start naming Mr. Federer’s accolades in ascending order, this court would have to cancel all its scheduled food and restroom breaks for at least a week to allocate enough time. Riots may break out in the sporting world should I, by my foolishness, choose to place his 17 grand-slam titles below his 23 consecutive semi-finals and countless other jewels as I, like several others, cannot pick which merits more glory. The conflicts that bombard one’s mind in an effort to pick why Mr. Federer is the greatest male player of all time, are huge. It could be because one cannot be taught magic, it’s something one is born with. How one creates angles and slices and prances on court from two opposite ends looking like a cheetah fresh from a beauty salon – the entire while being studied – is magical at most times. Such talent is beyond science. One cannot study it; one simple admires and reflects on it.

I tend to wander, so it’s time I got back to the original case on hand. As it so happens, it’s that time of the year when tennis players are at war again to try and get their hands on the Musketeers cup. Two weeks before the commencement of this tournament, media all over the world launch their usual tirade on how the tournament is a jinx for my client. Their behaviour is not unlike a 7-year-old child’s, who will continue giving reasons month after month about how his/her favourite pokemon is bad only while fighting a fire-type pokemon and eventually says that the terrain just isn’t meant to suit him.

When most tennis players turn 31, they find themselves looking at their forearms in the same way Arnold Schwarzenegger feels about his present pectorals. It is an age where one considers buying that dream home in Monte-Carlo, to enjoy a tax free life for the rest of their burnt out careers. My client calmly sits at number three in the rankings at 31 and a half. He hasn’t budged from the top four in over a decade. I’m fairly sure he won’t budge out of the top 10 in the next five, even if he wanted to.

A person, who in my knowledge has finished second best in the sand dunes of Roland Garros four times – and having said that, won it once – can calmly march out of the tennis world having achieved a huge amount of clay court success. By adding about 5 clay Masters titles, it should seem enough for a lifetime. As my client had once said, “I’ve created a monster”. People seem to depict him more as a Herculean demi-god rather than an extraordinarily talented human being with human limitations.