Yesterday evening Roger Federer played one past Rafael Nadal and exulted for precisely a second or two. After that, he collapsed on the ground, a sobbing, quivering mass of emotion, completely undone by the moment. And what a moment it was!
It was a historic moment at Wimbledon.
Earlier, in the fifth set, we saw what must have been the biggest, most brilliantly iridiscent moment of Wimbledon 2007. Indeed it must have been the most brilliant moment in the last five years at Wimbledon.
Federer led 3-2 in the fifth. Up until then, Nadal had played like a well-oiled, supremely conditioned machine. He gave no chances, his shot-making was like a taut piano string struck by a perfect hammer. Federer.....well, he had lead in his feet. Moved like an elephant, couldn't control Nadal's faster shots, and stood rooted to the spot like a nail in a wall as Nadal's winners whistled past. There was no brilliance.
Suddenly it was over in a jiff. Nadal was down 15-40 on that sixth game. Federer started sharpening his corners and no one really knew what was on his mind......then, suddenly, in a sublime moment of absolute genius, he had the electrically fast Nadal stranded. The court was open, only just. Nadal could have reached there......but he had to have anticipated Federer's on-the-line winner.
He didn't.
That moment sealed his fate. Wimbledon 2007 was out of his hands. "You can kiss that baby goodbye...."
Federer knew it - the break in his pocket, he exulted. It was a moment of brilliance that no other tennis player around today could have conceived, let alone executed. The timing was divine, in more ways than one. It was the perfect moment, picked by a perfect tennis player of supernatural talent, executed so beautifully that it was instant art. At that moment, all of Nadal's years of clinical efficiency, his careful plotting, his waiting, his give-no-chance shot-making, even his French Open victory, were erased with the finality of an artist's divine brush-stroke.
All those ominous pundits and shrill advocates of hard-work-over mere-talent and clinical-efficiency-over-divine-touch, were silenced forever by one moment of art on a tennis court.
Federer didn't play the tennis of his life throughout that final yesterday - but he played all of it in that one moment. And Nadal....well, he proved so much yesterday - all against his favour. He proved that you can't beat Federer by winning six games on each set for four sets - you still need to win the fifth too. He proved that you can THINK a lot about beating Federer and execute all your ideas - but you wouldn't be able to meet that one moment of precision. He proved irrefutably and for all time, the difference between a really good, even exceptional tennis player, and the tennis player who actually doubles as a supreme artist on court. He proved that you can do everything right and learn your lessons and 'max your paper', but you will not have a clue, let alone an answer, to a divinely inspired moment.
We all appreciated what Nadal was doing - he made all the right moves. We ordinary spectators could understand his play - opening the court, sharpening the pace, shooting down winners with amazing efficiency, not giving an inch. No one could understand Federer yesterday - no one could guess at what the man was thinking. His mind, to us all, was an enigma. And suddenly, the artist in the tennis player blossomed and filled that one moment with inspired art. And we all knew the difference.
After that moment, it was over. The two players went back to finish the five-setter but not to decide the winner. The winner was the one who produced that moment. If you had any doubts about whether Nadal knew he had already been beaten....you just had to see his face. The winners kept coming, but the man had lost the war while winning the battles.
Nadal had no answers - he is never going to know whether it was his error or just Federer's magic wand. He is never going to be able to understand what happened in that moment - it will haunt him for years to come.
But we are the ones who watched it, and we know - we know that an artist held centrestage for precisely one or two minutes yesterday. And we ask no questions - for we see the picture now.
