Ahead of our very exciting event with Geoff Dyer on June 16, we are delighted to bring you an exclusive extract from his brilliant new book, The Last Days of Roger Federer. You can CLICK HERE to book tickets to the event – in the meantime, enjoy…
I was dilly-dallying, unsure how to start this book about how things
end, on Thursday 10 January 2019, when, at the press conference
ahead of his first-round match at the Australian Open, Andy Murray
announced what amounted to his retirement. More than moving, it
was devastating to watch. The first, fairly innocuous question proved
too much for him. Unable to answer, he left the stage for several min-
utes to compose himself. It was the end, he said when he came back
out. He hoped to bow out at Wimbledon in July but was not sure he
would make it even that far. When another journalist asked if this
meant the Australian Open might be his last tournament, Murray said
that was quite likely. Which meant that his match on Monday —my
Sunday in Los Angeles— against Roberto Bautista Agut might be his
last. Murray sat there describing how the pain, not just of playing
top-level tennis but of pulling on his socks and putting on his shoes
at home, was too much. As often happens in these press conferences
his common-sense answers made the questions a little superfluous.
Had he seen a sports psychologist? Yes, but that didn’t help because
the pain was still there. If it had made the pain go away then he’d be
feeling great. The whole thing made for harrowing and, of course, ab-
solutely absorbing viewing. It was the end, Murray said, partly because
there was no end in sight— to the training, the rehab, the pain; no sign
when he might begin to get back to his best. A line from ‘The End’
floated through my head as I watched this gladiatorial athlete ‘lost in a
Roman wilderness of pain.’
One of the questions that had got me interested in this subject—
things coming to an end, artists’ last works, time running out—
was the long-running one of Roger Federer’s eventual retirement. The
imminent departure of the first of the ‘big four’ male players brought
an unexpected if indirect urgency into play. With a rival six years
his junior on the way out Roger’s time seemed also to be shrinking
around him.
Writers often have an end in sight for completing a book. For some
this can take the form of a proposal that leads to a contract in which
a deadline for delivery of the manuscript is agreed upon in advance;
I’m not one of them but Murray’s going out of the Australian Open,
as expected, in a blaze of beaten glory to Bautista Agut after five typ-
ically gruelling sets (the first two of which he had lost) concentrated
the mind. It seemed important that a book underwritten by my own
experience of the changes wrought by ageing should be completed
before Roger’s retirement, in the long twilight of his career. Even
with no idea of where, when, or how things might end up it was time
to start work on a book that ended up being written while life as we
know it came to an end.