Perpetual

Perpetual

"Perpetual". An English word that can be translated as eternal, lifelong, uninterrupted, constant.

For some, especially in some commercials that have started rolling around the internet these days, like the Rolex one about Roger Federer, they say that "the legacy of one player will be more eternal than any number".

Don't find fault with that, it's so comforting. What should they do, they have no choice.

For a decade and a half, they managed to twist, dodge, avoid, distort, redraw, modify the criteria according to themselves and their parameters, but they have nowhere else to go.

One man, with his unreal achievement, pushed them all into a corner and is free to put his finger to his mouth and add: “Shhhhhhhhhhh!” So often during the match, he silenced wild groups of fanatics in the stands, once again showing them that the louder and more daring they are, the more powerful he is on the court.

Some people never learn so simple and easy lessons… One American colleague understood the moment very well, so in connection with this (bad) marketing move from Roger Federer's camp, he paraphrased brilliantly how things stand in the legal profession:

“There is an old phrase from the law:‘ If the facts are against you, question the law. If the law is against you, discuss the facts. If both the law and the facts are against you, turn the table and shout as much as you can”!

Is there really only that left for them? It's possible, but I'm afraid they won't allow it. It shouldn't have happened!

Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are not a problem, because they had enough champion dignity to congratulate Djokovic on joining their "Club 20" the same evening, shortly after the championship ceremony, as befits true champions.

They should know what it means to get to number 20 and how much effort it takes to do something like that. Purely because they share a loaf of bread and a table with Novak.

And Novak answered them in a gentlemanly way, as he always did, that he was honored to be equal with them in terms of this achievement.

The problem is the others, who stand in the background, behind the scenes. They can't come to terms with the fact that Novak Djokovic "perpetually" defies the laws of logic, tennis, that he is ready to "perpetually" win great tennis battles, break records, change the system that tennis powers have established for decades to make him fairer for everything, and what hurts them the most is that they are aware that he is still at full speed and that he has no intention of stopping.

Don't worry, Novak's results are the best and only true advertisement! You know, somehow that clock at the end of the same mentioned commercial can really symbolize the moment of tennis eternity in which we are all now.

For some, it has stopped, for some it is ticking the alarm time, and for some it has been high time long ago, only they don't understand it, they don't put up with it.

The question is how to read that time from those clocks. I don't know how they do it in Switzerland, but despite the fanatical precision, it seems to me that they misread how many tennis hours there are, especially Uncle Roger.

Then, that same clock can show the transition from one time to another, because what we see from Novak, and what is shown to us from the other side, are two extremes.

Time dimensions that are still intertwined at some points, who will know. Einstein would not have figured out Novak's game with time either.

Especially when we see him getting younger, fresher, while some are drowning in tennis autumn, he resists and enjoys his lush summer.

However, another question remains to be clarified, ‘how to measure greatness’?

Number of weeks at the top? All right, fine. Number of slams? Fine. And then what do they say in the end, ‘there are certain things that numbers cannot express’?

I agree, and it cannot.

If the grace and beauty of the game are ahead of success, the number of the biggest titles, the mutual score, the number of weeks spent at the top, the number of masters… Then why bother to keep all these records? What with the statistics, ATP list, ATP race? What about everything? There is no dilemma, really - Roger Federer really plays beautifully for the eye and I admit that I love and enjoy watching him play, but nothing else, except maybe in that grace and popularity, which he undoubtedly enjoys in the world of sports, can be ahead of Novak Djokovic.

And that is the end of all those cunning "perpetuities" which are just ordinary digressions, thematic curves, in order to curtail the moment of glory of a guy who started the battle under unequal conditions. And he overcame all that and climbed to the very top. What a magnificent achievement! But where is Novak now? In which cloud of the seventh tennis paradise?

He is sitting on his sofa, polishing the sixth cup from Wimbledon, watching from a great height, he is not afraid of falling. Looking even further than this, from the horizon of the Wimbledon summer twilight, he turns the binoculars, perhaps towards Tokyo, but certainly towards New York.

The game continues soon. His heart is a machine, perpetual motion machine, working on a miraculous cosmic drive.

Still, I can't help but wonder, where did he, my people, get such gigantic, mental and physical strength from? I admit, I can't explain.

"I believe I'm the best, but whether I'm the greatest of all time is not for me to judge." Be careful, that is the sentence of Novak Djokovic after the 20th Grand Slam and the sixth at Wimbledon. Because he is aware that it is a matter of different eras, different tennis, props, conditions, generations, competition… Self-aware, but infinitely dignified. Always with the highest degree of respect for the game and the opponent. And that’s exactly what makes him bigger than everyone.

But not every country has such a champion.

I know that somewhere in his mind, every Englishman in that stormy football Euro evening, wished to have one Novak Djokovic in his team, rather than one Harry Kane or another who, when it was most important, failed.

But it is the privilege of the few lucky ones, and the Serbs are a lucky nation, and we are proud of that... The message that Novak sent with the victory over the third younger competitor than himself in this year's Grand Slam finals, clearly echoes through the Wimbledon corridors, and its echo can be heard from Melbourne, through Paris, London, all the way to New York.

"Guys, I'm not kidding..."

For Matteo Berrettini, there is still time, for Denis Shapovalov there is still time, as well as for Tsitsipas, Medvedev, the list is rather long...

Novak is playing a game of his own. He finished it one more time.

After the curtain falls on the green scenery at Wimbledon's Oz, you can already feel the air over Queens in New York, although the end of August and the beginning of September are still far away.

New York owes him, and that is Novak's super motive. He always has a clear goal and motive.

Review, count, conclude. Forget commercials and watches.

Don't be fooled, you know exactly who is perpetual after this!