16 Is Not Enough: Roger Must Want More

"You guys try to analyze it from a numbers standpoint and I'm telling you; there is no explanation for it. It's bigger than us." This one sentence; a radio voice relaying the words from another taut, sublime Aaron Sorkin script for the movie Moneyball, sums up why it's time to stop the Roger Federer eulogies.

Enough is enough.

Yes he's won 16 slams. Yes he's won ALL 4 slams, something few players have achieved. Yes he has a wife and a couple of little Rogerlings. And yes he could pack up his kit, walk away into the sunset and still be regarded as the greatest man to have graced a tennis court. While these are some of the reasons that have incited 'when will Roger retire' speculation, the case for him continue is far far stronger.

Thankfully, for now, he doesn't sound like he is ready to walk away. But boy does he have a fight on his hands.

A certain Novak Djokovic has gone from brittle to braveheart over the last year and has built himself a blood pump stronger than Rafael Nadal's- which is more than scary, considering Nadal's is made up of a high grade titanium alloy.

So now he has to get past two warriors. Still, he likes playing Djokovic more than he does Nadal, and he beat him in a Roland Garros semi last year and lost narrowly in New York.

All this leads up neatly to the quote from Moneyball.

Why analyze it numerically? Surely, after their gut busting battles in Melbourne, these three men and their fairly substantial supporting acts led by Andy Murray have made tennis bigger than us; bigger than numbers, and certainly at the moment, bigger than most other sport. Roger Federer is one of the three. Why should he go? Why should he go when he is part of a script that will be read, cited and talked about years to come.

As a recent article I read so succinctly pointed out- when these three play each other, it is almost as if they don't care about who wins. The court somehow rises above the arenas they grace and the most important thing in their minds seems to be how they can better the previous point- cue rally after rally of astonishing hitting, rally after rally of epic grandeur, rally after rally of eye watering physical brutality- a sustained pushing to the limit of skills and endurance- every match is like Jimmy Page playing the Stairway crescendo- without all the build up- from start to finish.

Some think that Federer might retire after the 2012 Olympics, especially if he wins it; that he may not be around for the U.S Open. When asked how he was feeling after the loss to Nadal in Melbourne this is what he said "I'm feeling fresh, I'm feeling fit and ready for the season." The business of writing about sport involves speculating. The wild ones usually sell more papers.

Surely Federer retiring is a topic that needs to be put aside.

Don't we all want him to be around for a long long time?

There is another poignant moment in Moneyball where Billy Beane, played by Brad Pitt says "I'm not in it for the records. If we don't win the last game of series they will erase us."

Roger Federer has not won the last match in a grand slam for over two years. For someone who had won sixteen of those over five, the numbers probably hit hard.

Till he wins another one there will be speculation of his departure.

I'll tell you what though. Somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind or perhaps on the surface (though it doesn't seem to show), Roger Federer will want to beat Rafael Nadal on the Paris clay.

Nadal stripped him off his Wimbledon crown, on that hallowed grass that he glided and danced on with such effortless poise, ruthlessly dismantling victims like an assassin who doesn't believe in spilling blood.

Sometime in the future, if they ever make a movie about this Golden Age of men's tennis, Federer will want a music score similar to that one in Moneyball. The haunting sounds of the piano with the crackling radio commentary rising above the tear inducing music "…and Roger Feder has beaten Rafael Nadal at the French Open. I cannot explain the scenes here. Federer is flat on the floor, covered in the red mud, surely trying to understand what he has just done."

"His achievement is beyond the stats; the numbers…"

Close up of Federer's watery eyes.

Fade scene.

Closing credits to more haunting music.