Down Under, Day 15: The Genius Really IS At Work

“What moves those of genius, what inspires their work, is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough.”

I wish I could get better-quality versions of the "panorama" shots to appear in these posts themselves, but I guess they are just too big. Click on the photo above to get a better widescreen appreciation of the view inside Rod Laver Arena. The "stitch" program on my Mac actually does a real good job of linking together the iPhone photos in order to make a nice whole, even if certain people manage to appear in two places at once (look carefully at the ballkid in pink standing near the net).

Got a chance to see a match tonight for the first time at a slam, and it was a pretty good first trip - Roger Federer vs. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the semifinals of the year's first major. The match itself promised a lot of sizzle, and as long as you were a Federer die-hard, it delivered. Those who enjoy competitive tennis were probably a little let down, as it looked like Federer was hardly trying and knocked out Tsonga cold in 90 minutes 6-2, 6-3, 6-2.

Up in the corner of the arena, as they are at every match he plays down here, there was a group that I can only surmise is the Roger Federer Stalkers Club of Melbourne. I have seen them on footage of every Federer match, every Federer practice, and I'm not talking about only here in 2010. It's like they hibernate for the rest of the year and emerge in Australia only for these two weeks. Anyway, they carry a big banner (cherry red like the Swiss flag) that proclaims "Shh!! Genius at work!" Having now seen him live and in person, I have to completely agree.

It's not that Federer can never be beaten (ask Rafael Nadal or Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina), it only seems that way. When he's on his game, and he's very rarely off it, the stunning thing isn't so much the quality of his tennis as much as the way he delivers it. I'm far from an expert on the game, but even I know great athleticism and a wonderful shot when I see one. Federer seems to have both in excess and hardly ever seems to be trying that hard to provide them. With a lot of other players that's not the case - you see the sweat, hear the grunts, can tell just how hard & far they're pushing themselves to be great. Federer might as well be lounging on the back porch with an iced tea for all the "effort" he appears to be giving.

This is his secret, of course. Probably because he routinely carves up high-quality opponents (Tsonga is a Top 10 player and made the final here in 2008), we take for granted how hard he must work, how deep his desire runs. It has to, otherwise he'd be bored out of his mind and retired by now. The guy simply loves to play tennis, watch tennis, and more than likely enjoys watching himself beat others while playing tennis. It was far from a scintillating match tonight - the most newsworthy event happened in the post-match interview when Federer fueled the fire of Andy Murray by joking, "He'll have to win the first title for British tennis in 150,000 years or something like that" - but it was amazing to see Federer play. And if we are going to proclaim the man a genius on the tennis court (there'd be few, if any, counter-arguments), we ought to remember what Thomas Edison said:

“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”

Video of match point: