Once upon a time, the tears shed by that most human of champions, Roger Federer, were tears of pure joy.
Sunday night in Australia, after yet another chunk of his once-impenetrable armour was ripped away by his greatest rival, we can only guess at what was behind them.
Maybe, just maybe, it was the realization that Rafael Nadal is not what Federer had hoped he'd be: the player who owned him on red clay - but only red clay. The upstart who secured the No. 1 ranking for what Federer had to believe was only a short-term lease.
Perhaps those tears began to form after their epic Wimbledon final last summer, the first real proof Nadal was going to be more than just a clay-encrusted genius. But in the magnitude and scope of that moment, perhaps Federer ignored them. After all, it was only one match.
Now that Nadal is the Australian Open champion, his first major title on the hard courts that have always proved his Waterloo both physically and mentally, the reality set in - hard.
And as Federer sat through interminably long speeches from a Japanese sponsor and the blowhard head of Tennis Australia, through the introduction of former champions including the great Rod Laver, it must have really hit home.
And so, the deluge, as painful and compelling to watch as anything you're likely to see in sport. If you weren't moved by it, you have a heart of stone.
Throughout Nadal's assault on Federer's immortal tennis legacy, he had always kept his cool, at least publicly. Everything was fine, he said - perhaps trying to convince himself above all others. Now, everyone on the planet who watched knows everything is not fine. And Federer can no longer deny it.
Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe it's his equivalent of rock-bottom.
Or maybe not. Maybe it's the moment we will all point to when, at some point in the future, we analyze when his Hall of Fame career reached its peak and started down that inevitable slippery slope to irrelevancy.
What it was, depends on him.
Nadal is 13-6 against Federer in his career. He has six Grand Slam titles, on three different surfaces, at age 22. At two per year for the next five years - when he'll be the same age Federer is now - he'd have 16.
His physical effort Down Under, from the five-hour semifinal marathon to the nearly 41/2-hour final, was Herculean and unrelenting.
The Majorcan's victory Sunday will be overshadowed some by the emotions of his opponent, even if it highlighted once again that Nadal may be the finest true sportsman around. He is humble and gracious in defeat, unfailingly classy in victory.
It marks the first time anyone has really added him to that "greatest ever" conversation. It was a turning point for him as much as it was for Federer.
Only in hindsight can you really see this. But the seeds were sown early. Nadal arrived in Australia rested, and having added a few new wrinkles to his arsenal. He was flattening out his severely spun forehand with regularity in the earlier rounds. His backhand had leaped up yet another level. He even had speeded up his glacial on-court pace.
In contrast, Federer had arrived in Australia in good health, unlike a year ago when what turned out to be mononucleosis dragged him down. He thought that was going to be enough. The game was the same.
That's the scary part for Federer. Nadal is still working so hard to get better. The stubborn Federer is unwilling, perhaps afraid, to step out of the comfort zone that worked so well, for so long.
That stubbornness is the hallmark of many a great champion; we still remember that period when the serve-and-volleying Boris Becker decided he was going to win Grand Slams from the backcourt and when Mats Wilander, having discovered the slice backhand relatively late in his career, all but abandoned his famed two-hander.
But it could prove to be Federer's Achilles heel; his former coaches have privately said that their pupil was nothing if not hardheaded. Maybe that's why he doesn't have a coach. And he could use one.
Hopefully, after his public purge, he can start fresh. He has little choice if he wants a piece of tennis history, that elusive 14th major title to tie the great Pete Sampras, a 15th to surpass him.
If he doesn't get proactive, the rest of his career could be painful to watch, because there are others coming up to challenge him as well. And Federer deserves better than our pity.
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The defining image of the 2009 Australian Open isn't a victorious Rafael Nadal, sprawled flat on his back in exhaustion and triumph after championship point Sunday night. Nor is it Nadal hoisting the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup, the sixth trophy he has won at a Grand Slam event, and his first at a hard-court major. What will be most remembered from this year's tournament is what transpired in the interceding quarter-hour, when a devastated Roger Federer broke down in tears during the awards ceremony and was comforted by Nadal, his rival and perennial vanquisher.
Nadal's convincing two-week run in Oz validated the No. 1 ranking he has held since last August. He dominated his first five matches of the tournament, losing no sets and only 40 games through the quarterfinals. He outlasted compatriot Fernando Verdasco in their five-hour, 14-minute instant-classic semifinal, then returned less than 48 hours later to outplay the highly motivated Federer, a 13-time major champion pursuing history, in another five-setter. No longer just the rey of the clay, Nadal used punishing forehands, ungodly passing shots and true grit to gain entrance to an exclusive club. The most recent men to win major titles on three different surfaces before Nadal: Jimmy Connors and Andre Agassi.
So when an inconsolable Federer wept openly on the awards dais, many Rafaelites protested that the Swiss maestro was stealing their man's moment. At 22, Nadal had just established himself as one of the game's all-time greats, the argument goes, and yet the emcee and Nadal were forced to accommodate Federer's breakdown. The focus fell on a vulnerable, teary-eyed Federer, not the exultant Nadal.
But Federer's tears in no way diminished Nadal's achievement. If anything, they gave the Spaniard the opportunity to exhibit his characteristic graciousness on a grand stage. Two nights earlier, journalists had heard Nadal say that he thought Federer was already the greatest player of all time, and that he wanted Federer to win his record-tying 14th major title -- just not against him. On Sunday night, the captivated spectators in Rod Laver Arena -- not to mention the global television audience -- saw Nadal's class for themselves.
After a weeping Federer false-started on his runner-up speech -- "God, it's killing me," he said before retreating to the back of the platform -- the emcee improvised, awarding Nadal the champion's trophy so that Federer would have time to compose himself. After receiving the Cup, Nadal stepped back to put a comforting arm around Federer, drawing a rueful smile from the runner-up, who then returned to the microphone, congratulated Nadal and thanked the assembled tennis legends and fans before breaking down again.
It was a gesture of compassion from a champion who can be hard to read. (The Spaniard's English is rapidly improving but remains an impediment; a colleague who speaks fluent Spanish told me Nadal is "impressive" in his native tongue -- thoughtful, serious, articulate.) The postmatch exchange between the two players made their rivalry that much more compelling. Their words and actions illustrated the extent of their mutual respect, and the importance each places on winning and on his respective place in the history of the game.
Even if Federer's tears had detracted from Nadal's moment, he shouldn't be criticized for them. It's not as though his reaction were a calculated move -- or that it was something he could have prevented. Federer is a genuinely emotional guy. He wept when he won Wimbledon for the first time in 2003, a ponytailed, headbanded 21-year-old overwhelmed by the magnitude of his achievement. He cried when he won the 2006 Australian Open, the seventh major title of his career. As unusual as it might have been to see a grown man -- a professional athlete who is so powerful and in control with a racquet in his hands -- reduced to tears of frustration and disappointment in defeat, it's no surprise that Federer reacted to defeat as he did.
We are used to seeing sportsmen cry in victory (think Paul Pierce at the Celtics' ring ceremony) or in departure (Brett Favre, retirement 1.0). I'm surprised there aren't more tears and fewer stoic faces on the losing sidelines. Roger Federer, a competitive guy, shouldn't be vilified for showing the effects of what was, for him, a devastating defeat. Seeing how deeply he cares underscores just how significant each Grand Slam event is in this modern Golden Age of tennis. Sunday's emotional awards ceremony made Federer, Nadal and men's tennis even more appealing.
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Roger Federer is hurting. The Swiss maestro is at home near Basle nursing a tired body and shattered ego and wondering if he has it within him to muster the life-force to defeat the youthful conquistador who has done him over in their past three grand-slam tournament finals.
How Federer responds to that question in the privacy of his mind will determine whether he has a chance - and it is now nothing more than a chance - of winning the two titles that will take him into the uplands of sporting immortality.
Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier will probably for ever have the last word on great sporting rivalries, but there is something about the tectonic collision between Federer and Rafael Nadal that has taken their struggle for supremacy beyond anything we have seen in tennis.
It is not just the exquisite contrast in styles and temperaments and the special talent that, in their unique ways, they share. It is not just that they have elevated each other's games to levels that leave us shaking our heads in disbelief instead of merely clapping. It is not even that they have produced two successive five-set finals, first at Wimbledon last July and now in Melbourne, so epic that Tolstoy could have written novels about them.
No, the true meaning of this rivalry - as with that of all great rivalries - is to be found deep within the two men as they ask questions of each other that they never imagined they would have to answer on a court.
There was a time when Federer's pursuit of Pete Sampras's record of 14 grand-slam titles had all the trappings of a procession, particularly after he defeated Fernando González, of Chile, without breaking sweat in the 2007 Australian Open to move into double figures. He was, like Ali in 1966, surveying a world so bereft of adequate challengers that his opponents seemed part of the act. Here you go, Roger, why don't you pass me; here, matey, a nice forehand for you to smash away a winner.
It was not that his opponents were not trying hard enough; it is just that, when there is an unbridgeable chasm separating one player from the rest, sport becomes choreography.
But by the end of that monster of a final in Melbourne on Sunday, Federer was utterly, almost pitifully, vanquished. We have seen him tearful before - in victory and defeat - but in his isolation amid 15,000 spectators, he quivered and shook, his body and mind struggling to come to terms with the detonation of an ambition he had nursed so preciously since his defeat in SW19. “God, it's killing me,” he said, shoulders hunched, boyish face downcast.
Federer's emotional concussion was amplified because he believed he had the beating of Nadal on the hard courts of Melbourne. He thought, deep inside, that he was on the verge of dispelling the demons that the Spaniard had sent spinning into his path. But the younger man responded to Federer's opening onslaught by raising his game and marshalling his gladiatorial spirit in a way that left Federer, by the end of the fifth set, hopelessly bewildered.
Nadal has been rightly lauded for his mental strength and physical stamina, but he also possesses a brilliant tactical brain. Part of the joy of his contests with Federer is watching the way he mercilessly tests the arc of the Federer backhand, those high, looping, teasing topspins forcing the Swiss to execute a stroke that looks almost vaudevillian.
Federer responded in Melbourne by stepping in and taking the backhand, where possible, on the up. But Nadal was not discouraged, switching the play, using the expanses of the court, testing Federer's legs, before shunting it back into the backhand side. The ebb and flow, thrust and counter-thrust, was magical.
How Federer responds to his latest setback is the most urgent and intriguing question in sport. In the recesses of his mind, the Swiss probably yearns for his youthful opponent just to go away and leave him in peace as he seeks to reach the milestone of 15 grand-slam titles that, for so long, seemed like a formality. But the curious fact is that Nadal, by defeating his rival, by exposing his vulnerabilities and technical imperfections, by testing his character in ways it has never been tested before, has coaxed Federer into revealing new dimensions of greatness.
That, of course, is the way sport works. Ali was at his most imperious between 1965 and 1967 as he tap-danced his way through a succession of title defences, but his greatness as a boxer was forged later in the white heat of Kinshasa, Manila and, yes, even Madison Square Garden, when he was defeated for the first time by a crusading Frazier.
Ali was forced to look deep inside himself during that extraordinary contest and he had to plumb new depths of character to set out on the comeback trail, defeating Frazier in their return before rope-a-doping George Foreman into submission in a jungle clearing in what was formerly known as Zaire.
Federer has already revealed character aplenty, not just in his epic defeat by Nadal at Wimbledon and his thrilling triumph amid the din of Flushing Meadows last September; he also did so at the Rod Laver Arena on Sunday. He came within an inch of taking Nadal down, a few points here and there proving the difference in a match of kaleidoscopic shifts in fortune and momentum. Yes, Federer was forced once again to taste defeat, but this was a defeat that added to his legacy rather than diminished it, even if he did slowly unravel towards the end of the final set.
Nadal will loom large over Federer's every waking thought as the Swiss attempts to regroup, the world No1's muscular shadow forcing Federer to ask himself a string of searching questions. Should I enlist the services of a coach? Should I remould the backhand to cope with the vertiginous bounce of Nadal's topspin? Should I cut the amount of court time and get down the gym to fashion a level of fitness comparable to the indefatigable Spaniard? Should I restructure my season to focus exclusively on Wimbledon and the US Open?
But amid the questions, Nadal has also handed his greatest rival a priceless, if daunting, opportunity. It is the same opportunity that Frazier handed Ali, McEnroe handed Borg, Prost handed Senna, Duran handed Leonard and Spassky handed Fischer. It is an opportunity to demonstrate the resilience that so many of Federer's erstwhile cheerleaders think is beyond him. It is an opportunity to make believers of those who question his mettle.
But ultimately it is an opportunity to make a believer of himself - and that, one imagines, is likely to prove the greatest challenge of all.
