Good ol’ Roger Federer should now gracefully retire … if he still wants to remain GOAT in my esteem.
Last evening watching him on TV play at Wimbledon made me squirm in my seat and start eating my shirt-sleeves out in embarrassment…. I just couldn’t bear to see him lose a final set 0-6 and then bow out of the tournament like some battered, bloodied ageing boxer carried off the ring with his great pride all intact but not his jawbone and nose.
And then a cousin of mine in Houston, another passionate RF fan, sends me on WhatsApp the above meme of the GOAT … just to rub it into me…. Hoo boy! What empathy indeed! What a great way to commiserate and cry on each other’s shoulders… for Gawd’s sake!
But then I tell myself it’s OK …. After all, the great Bradman in his last ever innings got out for a glorious duck 🦆, didn’t he ?
Does that make Bradman any the less Bradmanesque?
Isn’t it sad that most great champions fail to time their exit from the game … at least not certainly as exquisitely as they were known to do while playing it at the very peak of their career.
Sadder still am I 😔!
Sudarshan Madabushi