Roger Federer as Religious Experience | Hacker News Reader

Roger Federer as Religious Experience

nytimes.com

33 pointsvorador12 comments

If you've never read anything by David Foster Wallace, this is an excellent place to start. It has all of his tricks — the footnotes, the hyperliterate sentences, the disregard for periods, total maximalism — and not a few examples of his descriptive virtuosity.

It'll also, no matter how much you may already be awed, keep you from ever watching another of Federer's match without seeing the effervescent white light surrounding him or looking to see if his feet every really do touch the ground.

Heh. I've been crawling through Everything and More and it's definitely not an excellent place to start, unless you've already got the transfinite math chops and are reading it for sheer enjoyment. (Note: I don't already have the transfinite math chops, and while I'm reading the book for enjoyment, it's "sheer" mainly in the sense that the unforgiving cliff face to which a novice climber clings is sheer.)

If you enjoyed this essay on Federer, the logical next place to go with DFW is his essay collection A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again.

I loved A Supposedly Fun Thing, but my wife hated it. Maybe that was my fault for suggesting she read it on the cruise ship. (-:

This great article[1] covers a lot of finesses in the Tennis universe with its Swiss king. The high level beauty of Federers game can be seen even from Tennis newbies. With his smooth movement, it looks like he has an additional second of time. Where other players struggle with intense footwork, he seemingly floats around the court (probably best seen with his great inside-out shoot).

If you get a chance to seem them, probably some of the best modern matches are:

* ATP Wimbledon Final 2007 & 2008: Federer - Nadal

* ATP Australian Open Semi: Nadal - Verdasco

[1] from Aug. 2006, a time where Federer hasn't yet topped the Grand Slam record of Sampras

all three are great. but more recently you're forgetting the 2009 Wimbledon Final - he beats Soderling, passes Sampras's record of 15 grand slams, AND wins on a near-record 14 games to 12 fifth set.

You're right of course; the recent Wimbledon Final absolutely was a historic match.

However, if I had to choose a game to rewatch, this one would be on 4th place behind the ones I listed. Not to take anything away from the performance of the players, but for my taste the match had slightly to much focus on the serve.

Btw.: add US Open 2009 Semi Final vs Djokovic; and not just for the greatest Tennis shot ever where Federer runs back to catch D. ball and passes him with shooting through his legs ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TygKHUcT-Ek

Except that he beats Andy Roddick on that 2009 Wimbledon Final. It is in Roland Garros that he beats Soderling in final that year.

Doh! i watched those matches back-to-back last week (they replay lots of good tennis here in Argentina), which is why i got confused...

Great article... wish I read it four years ago, then again in hindsight it's nice to be critical of a journalist having knowing the content a bit. Particularly, this was quite comical: "Nadal ... his way of always cutting his eyes warily from side to side as he walks the baseline, like a convict expecting to be shanked." soo true, ha.

Pretty accurate description of, "if you've only watched pros on TV, then you really have no idea how" fast the game really is or how hard they are hitting the ball, that suffering from TV you lose that extra dimension to viewing the game, also where he talks about the foreshortening of the court assists in lessening the effect these players actually have if you were in person.

Another area that I found interesting: "The metaphysical explanation is that Roger Federer is one of those rare, preternatural athletes who appear to be exempt, at least in part, from certain physical laws."

"... a creature whose body is both flesh and, somehow, light." Well, if you've ever really looked at Federer, he really is one of the skinniest out there, in both tennis and overall sports... even Tiger Woods who is the same height and weighs less than Fedex, looks at least to me, heavier than Fedex... can't deny Woods has more muscle mass than Fed and might well explain Fed's ability to float around the court.

Finally, what can we learn when he talks about what the game looks like to Fedex? It's almost like it really does depend on what's going on inside his brain, pistons firing like no other brains can.

Good find.

If you're in the narrow group of people that like both Federer and David Foster Wallace, you'll like Infinite Jest, which is a 1000 page DFW book about tennis, drug addiction, and garbage disposal.

Otherwise, I found this NYT essay a lot less engaging than the essays in "A Supposedly Fun Thing...". Another good one at The Atlantic (it was better in print, where they got to play with the typesetting too):

   http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200504/wallace

For Federer fans, here's something you may like:

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=272192

(Title: Federerisms)

Stop, you're killing me!

I live with the worlds biggest Rafa fan. :)

(Actually, I also prefer him to Federer, perhaps because of canonization of St. Rodger.)

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