federer raze i thought it was kind of funny when my dad called and asked me to check the tennis score for him. the only tennis i'd ever seen was boris becker playing john mcenroe. probably at the australian open in '92. i liked the way becker looked. so i would be him whenever we played ping-pong. my dad was always mcenroe. fifteen years later, it was roger federer and rafael nadal facing off in the wimbledon final. i didn't know anything about the sport. but these guys were from another planet. i decided i was pulling for rafa because he looked like nick drake. roger won in five sets. by the time of the 2009 australian open final, i was a ride or die fan of both men. i caught their matches whenever i could. it didn't matter who or where or when they played. every time those two titans locked horns it was something special. they made magic out of movement, strategy, and instinct. rafa was relentless. chasing down everything. turning lost causes into improbable victories. drenching the court with sweat. roger was an artist. he made the impossible look effortless. even his mistakes were beautiful. it felt like the three of us grew into adulthood together. i got to watch their friendship deepen as they waged war on clay and grass and acrylic-kissed asphalt. got to see them adapt their games as age took away a bit of their agility and thinned their hair. i blew off a friend's phone call to watch roger rip the trophy out of andy murray's hands in 2012 when everyone said he'd never win wimbledon again. i swore at him the next summer when he played through a nagging back injury and choked away matches he should have won. lost my mind when he destroyed everyone at the western and southern open in 2015 with the most insane attacking tennis i'd ever witnessed. winced when he injured his knee in the 2016 wimbledon semis and fell to milos raonic, who i knew would choke in the final. when he came back from the brink and willed himself to win a fifth set against rafa at the australian open in 2017, i laughed with tears in my eyes. my dad screamed and punched the couch, happy beyond words. i suffered through a vicious sinus infection at an ungodly hour to watch roger do the same thing again the next year with marin cilic on the other side of the net. i cried with him when he won and was gutted when he lost. he broke my heart and took my breath away. he was a dancer with a headband and a racket in his hand. there won't be anyone like him again. not ever. 220918 what's it to you? who go blather from