Roger Federer

From Roger Federer to Bob Dylan, George Best to Jean Rhys, Geoff Dyer roams widely in this finely crafted study of endings.

It is knee supports on both legs that now keep him on the tennis court, but like Federer, it is a reserve of flair, touch, timing and a keen eye that keeps him in the game. Dyer acknowledges he is trending towards demographic norms in that he finds himself increasingly reluctant to “stray far from the military history section of bookshops, with an ever tightening focus on the second world war”. But he is also someone who still engages in intricately choreographed hallucinogenic drug-taking in Joshua Tree, literally dreams about playing football (“my best dreams of the year”) and rides his bike with the apparent gusto of an eight-year-old. But while he is a connoisseur of the humdrum details of failure – often skilfully crafted for humour with himself as the target – he also has a joyous appreciation of the transcendent and the triumphant. It was a form of promotion, practically an ambition.” A Duke of Edinburgh award camp (he stopped after bronze, and quitting is also a theme of the book) is recalled as the moment he heard the news that George Best had given up football aged only 26. But there is always humour, as well as the sense that he has looked closely and thought about things. Yet just as Dyer’s book about DH Lawrence, Out of Sheer Rage, was about not writing a book about DH Lawrence, so this book is not really about Federer. We do learn bits and pieces of what he means to Dyer – down to a close reading of two points he lost to Novak Djokovic in the 2019 Wimbledon final.