As a nine-year old boy, my dreams were entirely different to what the reality turned out to be. I had started playing Tennis, not for recreation, but with an aim of reaching the professional levels. In the year 2002, when I had picked a racquet for the first time, there was barely anyone worthy of name in India who made it big in the sport. Sure, there was an odd Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi, or the Amritrajs. But none of them ever won a major title in the singles category. Even when Sania Mirza became big, she reached her best singles rank of 27 before comfortably shifting all her focus to doubles.

Clearly, my dreams were stupid. But you expect nothing more from a single-child whose doings at everything are the attention of the entire family, both immediate and extended. It was a genuine aspiration to play high-level Tennis and win a Grand Slam. The path looked simple and easy because that’s what I was told all along. Again, stupidity.

In all of this, there was one man who made me both strong and weak at the same time. Roger Federer. Strong because he seemed to be doing what was impossible. The ease with which he played, the meticulous footwork which goes unnoticed unless you pay close attention, the versatility of his game to perfect every single shot from serving aces to driving half-volleys with tight angles, and the focus with which he played every single point leaving no chance to his opponents to wag their tails. In July 2003, just before I was about to turn ten, this man had won his first major title at Wimbledon. It was just his first, for he would go on to win another nineteen!

But Federer also made me weak because he was the gold standard to turn my dreams into reality. It was unquestionably obvious that I am thousands of miles away to what he does. Barring a few like Nadal and Djokovic, the best of the Tennis world collapsed one after another before him. And if that is what it takes to win a slam, then my dreams are beyond stupid. For this, I hated him.

This hate had grown over time. Every time I would watch him play, I’d try to find some flaws in his game just to make him more human. Whenever he served the ball into the net or hit an unforced error, I felt a little happy to see that he is not invincible. It was all to convince myself that even he is not absolute perfect. Because to make him that absolute perfect would be to place him at a pedestal that I can never reach. And this made me support Andy Roddick, his main rival in those years from whom he had snatched the Rank 1 spot.

Nevertheless, despite his occasional errors on the court, the results did not change. From 2003 to 2007, he won a solid twelve major titles, only to be stopped short of two more by Nadal at French. The more he won, the more I hated him. The more I hated him, the more I loved him.

Eventually, when I hung my racquet in the year 2008 after several bouts of failures, I realised that I am not cut out for the sport. I neither have the muscle strength nor the agility required to perform at a higher level. More importantly, I had to choose between school and Tennis. In India, this is entirely a Hobson’s Choice. And as I left Tennis, it pained me to even watch it on TV. I avoided every Tennis related news for a few months because they would bring tears just to think that I had created humongous castles in the air that would shatter like a bubble-pop.

Then came January of 2009. The Australian Open. I did not watch. But I had seen the results in the news. A sobbing Federer crying away with so much pain that he could not even complete his concession speech as the Runner-up, only to be consoled by the winner, Nadal. Suddenly, the tables had turned. My disdain turned into admiration, envy turned into praise, and hate turned into love. To such extent that I resumed watching Tennis only because I wanted to watch Federer play. At the Wimbledon that very same year, I found myself supporting Federer against Roddick, something that was unthinkable a brief while ago. He won. And his victory at French gave him the Grand Slam – winning of all four majors – a level of excellence which only a few in the sport reached. Somehow, my life felt complete.

Over the next few years, I followed his career with a sharp eye. I would even tabulate the ATP Ranking points on my own, only because they would be updated on every Monday and my lazy weekends would not want to wait till then. This would go on until July 2014.

July 2014. My heart skipped a beat when I saw that Mahesh Bhupathi is organising the International Tennis Premier League, a hybrid team competition based on the format of IPL Cricket. In Team India, he placed Federer. And to play his matches in this event, Federer would come down to New Delhi. This made my spine jitter. I was ready to sell myself away to get a chance of witnessing the maestro in flesh. Thankfully, I didn’t have to do that and my savings of Rs. 17,000/- did the job to get me a fairly proximate seat in the Indira Gandhi Stadium.

The event was in December 2014. I had a scheduled internship with the law firm which recruited me. I told them that I have a moot to attend to, a part-lie as the BCI Moot I did was actually in November. I could delay my joining at this internship and flew away to Delhi. After all these years, I could see the man that influenced my life like no other.

After an extensive security frisking, I was pushed by the crowd into the Stadium. I saw that a blue Tennis court shone bright, but I had to figure where my allotted seat was before the crowd became thicker. As I took my seat, I took my mobile and saw the time, to see how much of it is left before he would grace these courts. Over an hour. I then looked around and noticed the two men knocking balls on the court. I zoomed my eyes to see who they were. The vision became blurry and the world seemed to lose a few colours. Tears slipped down my cheeks and I lost all energy. It was Sampras and Federer.

He was on the court to warm-up before the real act which was to take place an hour later. After a few minutes, he ended his rallies and walked towards the exit. I got up and ran towards him. I was at the higher pedestal of the ground-level exit through which he would pass. He came close, looked around and waved with a smile at everyone who was there to cheer him. For a good one second, he stared straight at me, and the next, he looked beyond and away. Fuck.

My heart was shattered. How can he simply not know or recognise who I was! I grew up with him. In a world where I barely had any friends, he was the constant that took most of my time. Not for months, but for over a decade! I spoke to him when he was the screensaver of my Windows XP. I cried when he did at Australian 2009 and I laughed when he did at French 2009. He was always there, but suddenly he wasn’t!

It took me a while to realise that I am too small – a nobody. That for him, he has thousands of thousands who consider him as important part of their life as I did. And suddenly, from knowing someone so close and so well, I went down to being just another ‘fan’!

For the next three days, I watched him play with so many other greats – Djokovic, Ivanisevic, Sampras, etc. But I regretted taking all this pain to come see him because the view was better from behind the screen. The hopeless facade was comfortable and shouldn’t have been shattered. At that moment, it came to me that I didn’t want to love him anymore. That I didn’t want to be his fan or admirer. That I didn’t want to cherish him for his grace, talent, and results. I only wanted to be him.

So stupid.