The Master: The Long Run and Beautiful Game of Roger Federer

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Lynette is convinced that what got Roger through those first five months was the fact that he had made his own decision to go to Ecublens and hadn’t been pressured into it by his parents. ‘He had made the decision himself,’ says the mother who spent about an hour a night on the phone to her son in those early months, ‘and only became aware later of all the things that the decision brought with it. But because he wanted it himself, he was willing to battle through.’" Think about today,” he says. “We left with the sunrise, beautiful weather in Indian Wells, and we get here, and it’s cold and a totally different vibe. That’s the beauty of travel, of seeing different places. I love it. I do. I still love it.”

The parts of this I enjoyed the most had to do with Dyer's own personal adventures and misadventures, whether his long-running mission to never pay for shampoo again or his frustrated attempt to complete "A Dance to the Music of Time." Even when I didn't completely relate to the enthusiasm Dyer shows to things like jazz, I always enjoyed the writing. And when Dyer turned his attention to people and things I am enthusiastic about — films, novels, Christopher Hitchens, Federer, etc — I was enthralled. The author's reflection on books he's quit early, and those he's come to terms with never having read.

Lover of a good title that I am, and a good ending, I was immediately drawn "The Last Days of Roger Federer: And Other Endings." Dyer had an event at this year's Hay Festival and I was taken by his humor and the curiosity he expressed about endings because it's one I share.

There have been a lot of books focusing on Roger’s career, how he became the legend he is now, and pretty much all of them illustrated Roger from a biographical perspective. This book is different. It takes another angle. A connoisseur of the humdrum details of failure, Dyer also has a joyous appreciation of the transcendent and the triumphant

It is touching at times, funny at times, but these little gems are very well hidden in the overwhelming pile of random text about absolutely everything. Agree. In Spain there was some notable crowd. It’s on fresh air, so (according to epidemiologists) almost no risk of virus transmission if distance of 1,5 m can be hold. Which means almost 50% of stadium capacity should be no problem, even without masks.

Rafa/Fed rivalry - different from Fed/Sampras because Rafa was only a few years younger and hadn’t idolized Fed, nor was Fed the unquestioned future #1 during Rafa’s childhood. Lots of commonalities leading to mutual respect and a form of friendship - strong families, education by coaches with shortcomings as players, egalitarian streaks in coaching/upbringing, innovative fitness regimens, choosing tennis over soccer in similar fashion, respect for history of game. Clarey emphasizes Nadal’s love of process - not about kill but love of hunt; putting Fed on pedestal even while moving toward surpassing him (09 Aus). Geoff Dyer’s latest nonfiction book is about last things - last days in a career, a life, lastness generally - that takes the form of a rambling narrative recounting experiences and cultural things that have happened to and around the author. Roger Federer: Die Biografie was first published in 2019 in German, but now the publisher, Polaris, has translated the book into English, and some minor updates have brought it up to date for 2021. Federer seems like someone who is good at appreciating what’s around him, and retaining his sense of wonder about it all. On a few occasions, when he’s been asked about a past match, I’ve heard him mention that he enjoyed the weather that day—the sight of the sun setting over the court, or a storm he could see coming in the distance. As you say in the book, “jaded” has never been in his vocabulary. It was harder for fans to grow weary of Federer winning titles, big or small, when Nadal had reminded them that winning was not a givenBy turns educational, witty, self-indulgent, boring and fascinating, the book is a sampler of the author’s interests, likely to only connect sporadically with the reader’s. If you’re into Beethoven, Nietzsche, Dylan, Turner, jazz, psychedelics and tennis, you’re sorted. What I enjoyed the most perhaps is seeing the other side of Federer, the side the media doesn't usually focus on as they are busy painting him as the elegant gentleman who plays and wins tennis matches so effortlessly. I didn't know that Roger left school at 16 with a lot of financial support from his parents that few others could rely on. The comparison to Agassi could have been expanded as he, unlike Federa, did not choose tennis. This lead to all sorts of problems, many psychological, which is understandable, yet Federa too did not escape psychological challenges. This is another big gap in the book. Geoff Dyer was born in Cheltenham, England, in 1958. He was educated at the local Grammar School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He is the author of four novels: Paris Trance, The Search, The Colour of Memory, and, most recently, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi; a critical study of John Berger, Ways of Telling; five genre-defying titles: But Beautiful (winner of a 1992 Somerset Maugham Prize, short-listed for the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize), The Missing of the Somme, Out of Sheer Rage (a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award), Yoga For People Who Can’t Be Bothered To Do It (winner of the 2004 W. H. Smith Best Travel Book Award), and The Ongoing Moment (winner of the ICP Infinity Award for Writing on Photography), and Zona (about Andrei Tarkovsky’s film Stalker). His collection of essays, Otherwise Known as the Human Condition, won a National Book Critics Circle Award in 2012. He is also the editor of John Berger: Selected Essays and co-editor, with Margaret Sartor, of What Was True: The Photographs and Notebooks of William Gedney. A new book, Another Great Day at Sea, about life aboard the USS George H W Bush has just been published by Pantheon.