Game, set and matchless Federer

Parbina Rashid

“I hope I won’t have to use those tissues…” From the moment Roger Federer utters those words to the moment he breaks down in front of the 6,500-strong crowd at London’s O2 Arena 12 days later, ‘Federer: Twelve Final Days’ makes us relive those moments that led to the exit of one of the greatest players in the world of professional tennis. Those were the words he told his team before recording his farewell speech on September 14, 2022.

“I am an emotional guy,” he says as he points at the stack of tissues. Emotion, indeed, runs high. “Alps are shedding a tear,” says Federer’s long-time agent Tony Godsick on a call with Anna Wintour, a tennis fan and editor-in-chief of Vogue, pointing at the weather just before the message goes out. The retirement is imminent but not without one last fight. Federer prepares for Laver Cup, a tournament to honour former Australian champion Rod Laver.

In the run-up to D-day, Federer masks the attacks on his nerves and knots in the tummy well — when he talks about his three knee operations between 2020 and 2022, the pain he saw in his wife Mirka’s eyes as his career went south, or as he parties with legends like Rod Laver and Bjorn Borg, his idol, arch rival and great friend Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray just before he and Nadal take on their opponents, Jack Sock and Frances Tiafoe, in the Laver Cup.

With Joe Sabia going behind the scenes of those 12 days and Asif Kapadia rounding up the documentary with archival footage, we get a sketchy profile of Federer’s early years, as a ball boy, as a junior player in Switzerland and glimpses of his matches — 1,750 competitive matches and 20 Grand Slam singles titles in his 24 years of professional tennis. But the highlight of the documentary remains his retirement, which is considered a kind of death for any sportsperson. As Federer’s coach Severin Luthi puts it, “An athlete dies twice.”

One of the most delightful moments of the documentary is when it highlights his friendship with Nadal. From Federer’s declaration that “I like being on top alone” in 2004 in the context of his rivalry with Nadal to taking Nadal into confidence about his retirement plan 10 days before the official announcement, it’s amazing how the arch rivals on the field could share such a beautiful friendship off it.

Nadal, too, reciprocates as he says, “The feeling before a Grand Slam final with Roger is different. Different atmosphere, different kind of pressure, to know that I will not have this feeling again for the rest of my life is something that’s painful. Even if we had a great rivalry on the court, we were able to have a great friendship off the court. And that is something that is very difficult to find in this competitive world.”

The 90-minute documentary has some delightful moments. Like the one when Federer gets to know from Djokovic at the pre-tournament party that they both were wearing the wrong shirt with their tuxedos. Federer makes a dash to his room to change his. This is, perhaps, the only time we see him unrestrained. But, sadly, Kapadia and Sabia do not let their guard down even for a moment. They go about documenting the final days of the tennis legend’s journey with clinical detachment; without drama or emotional outbursts. Their treatment of his personal life seems scripted. Neither do they educate us about the transformation of the ball boy from Switzerland to the master of the game, or decode his never-say-die attitude, which helped him make a remarkable comeback after a series of physical setbacks.

Kapadia’s treatment keeps us so emotionally restrained that even the final match, which is given enough screen time, becomes of little consequence. It does not matter whether Team Federer wins or loses.

In one of the scenes, Federer says he knew the presence of his wife Mirka and the ‘Rafa angle’ would shatter his resolve not to cry. We too knew what would be our breaking point, watching the ‘artist of the court’, as Borg calls him, talking the final bow.

But the breaking point arrived earlier. This particular scene beautifully juxtaposing two images of Federer — his younger version tying his bandana and the soon-to-be-retired version tying his bandana one last time — hits hard. Then comes his awkward goodbye speech in the locker room with Nadal sobbing uncontrollably. With these two scenes, Kapadia turns the game to make it Advantage Kapadia. It’s our turn to reach for the tissues.