He cried, and it was hard not to cry with him. The sight of Roger Federer’s lower lip trembling would have been enough to start most soft-hearted observers off, but by the time his tears started flowing, a far proportion of the 15,000 at Rod Laver Arena and the millions watching around the world were probably reaching for the tissues too. If that had not done the trick, then the sight of Rafael Nadal, his conqueror, putting his arm around him in friendly consolation, would have set off a worldwide outbreak of sniffles. Australia, perhaps more than any other nation on earth, values mateship, and you will not better embodiment of that than the sight of one great champion comforting another.
Federer did his best not to take the limelight away from Nadal at the moment when Spain had its first Australian Open champion and the winner of a match of enduring quality had just taken his sixth Grand Slam title at the age of just 22, but the Swiss’s was a scene-stealing performance nonetheless. Federer is, as Nadal said in his acceptance speech, one of the greatest players of all-time, but he came second on the night - and that hurt like hell. As Federer said just before the sobs took over, “God, it’s killing me”.
He had played, at times, every bit as well as a 13-time Grand Slam champion might expect to. In the fourth set in particular, his tennis was sublime, but by the time the contest moved into its fifth set and its fifth hour, Federer’s brain appeared to have been fried by the mental pressure Nadal had been exerting on him since the very first ball. “I mean, this is, sure, one of the matches in my career where I feel like I could have or should have won,” said Federer, who repeatedly had break points snatched away from him by Nadal’s remarkable ability to find a first serve or a rasping forehand winner when threatened.
“You can't go through your whole life as a tennis player taking every victory that's out there. You've got to live with those, you know. But they hurt even more so if you're that close, like at Wimbledon or like here at the Australian Open. So that's what's tough about it.”
He did not seem to regret the tears afterwards. Federer is a thoroughly modern man and so would probably not normally be concerned about a public display of emotion, but even he might have preferred it if this one had not been quite as public as it was. “In the first moment you're disappointed, you're shocked, you're sad, you know, then all of a sudden it overwhelms you,” he explained afterwards. “The problem is you can't go in the locker room and just take it easy and take a cold shower. You can't. You know, you're stuck out there. It's the worst feeling. It’s rough.”
He had, by his own admission, played a poor fifth set and was critical of his own serving, but in the end such things are details which will probably be largely lost in time. What cut him to his very core was the knowledge that, for the fifth time in his career, he had been denied a Grand Slam victory by Nadal, and so missed out on the chance to equal Pete Sampras’ record of 14 major titles. Nadal’s first thought when he had accepted the trophy was to reassure Federer that he believes the Swiss will match and then pass that historic marker before his career is out. “Rog, sorry for today,” said Nadal, turning to his friend with genuine compassion in his voice. “I really know how you feel right now. Remember that you are a great champion and you are one of the best in history and you will beat Pete Sampras’ 14 titles for sure.”
Federer mustered a weak smile and nodded his appreciation, but the pain was still there on his face. It wasn’t long before the tears began to roll again.
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