That tiny piece of Federer’s comeback, that’s mine. Just like yours.

I have spent a regrettable amount of time watching sports during my adult years, a significant amount of which were spent on supporting dark horses. Think Zimbabwe in that 99 World Cup, the Cavs last year up against the best shooting team in NBA history or Ivanisevic every single year when he was playing. The only exception to the rule had been the West Indian team when I was growing up. But that team went to underdog playbook well before I was in my 20s. To this day, decisions around life and career are always misty. But sport, I knew exactly how to maneuver.

Which is why when I say that I started supporting Federer only since he has been an underdog, most people find it a little hard to believe. Tennis fans around the world especially in India got divided on a late Sunday evening in 2008. That Wimbledon final is actually when I took sides for the first time, other than Goran Ivanesivic and Andy Roddick, those buggers, who both ended with exactly 1 Grand Slam each.

That evening, it was almost like life coming full circle because it wasn’t too dissimilar from rooting for Sampras in his later years.

A 29-year old Federer with a game that relies on minimal footwork was getting outrun by this bully of an opponent in Nadal, five years younger than him. Every scorching pass was returned, every smash recovered and every volley was hurled right back at Federer with disdain. Like many of my generation, I took sides.

That evening, I went for the 29 year old. Since then here are the facts:

In the 7 years preceding that game, Federer had won 12 Grand Slams. In the subsequent 8 years, he won 5. Till yesterday.

He played Nadal in 4 more Grand Slam knockout games since that 2008 final and lost all.

Even when he won the French Open, he defeated Soderling who had snuffed out Nadal. So that victory seemed incomplete.

The subsequent year, he lost to Djokovic in perhaps the most painful knockout game of all time for me as a fan at the 2010 US Open. It was a ball that flicked the net and landed just inside Federer’s court even as he was on Match Point. His second one that evening.

And then the unthinkable started to happen. He started losing to players who would simply outmuscle him. Murray, Berdych, Tsonga. But that wasn’t the worst. A rank outsider Sergiy Stakhovsky, forget it, I am not even completing this sentence.

Having suffered all this since 2008, when the news of his steady progress emerged at this year’s Australian Open, as the romantic idealist, I came up with my own CYA plan to save myself the heartbreak of seeing him lose again. I was not going to watch a single game or a single point this year. That was my simple face-saving plan.

Higher ranked players got waylaid too early. Meanwhile Federer took out Berdych. Then Nishikori. Was there hope? I wasn’t going to fall for this. And then the mind started playing games. Who would you rather have- an older Nadal or a much-younger Dimitrov? Fans have to deal with these intangibles in their head while they go about working on optimization models in offices.

“Dimitrov, of course,” my friend Giri told me. We know how that panned out.

So there we were, Nadal versus Federer, once again in a tournament for the first time in years that I didn’t see a single game of. Nope, not a single point.

In this day and age, cutting yourself from television doesn’t do anything for isolation from Grand Slam Finals. There’s chatter everywhere. Experts, naysayers, trolls — that entire gamut of specialists that internet has spawned came biting. One scroll here and one swipe there and you would read about “Man, what a comeback” or “See, you can’t push him down” or my least favorite acronym of all time, “G.O.A.T”.

If I, as a meek, worthless bystander, went through this terror while rooting for Federer in my own way, imagine for a moment what our favorite sportspeople go through on a day-to-day basis. Lesson learnt in restraint.

I also prepared my comeback line already. “It doesn’t matter who won”. And then came a dooming notification. “Nadal pushes Federer to fifth set”. No matter how much you know or not know about tennis. Whether you have played tennis ever or not, that single line means death to a Federer supporter. It’s that creeping sensation of someone skinning the lamb before slaughter. That’s what Nadal versus Federer in the 5th set really means.

What do you do to take your mind off it? I checked out Bookmyshow and went for the worthiest musical gig possible. Amit Trivedi. Perfect plan. Nothing that Nadal can do now, can hurt anymore. That’s a pretty good insulation, I thought.

From there on, it was difficult to kill time at home. Got to the venue early. Sat in a hospital cafe. And soon enough, got another notification about the final outcome of the game.

“Thank you BBC Sport. I am never ever going to have another app on sport ever on my phone. That’s my gift to you for bringing this news to me.”

Called everyone I knew who was watching. Got calls from everyone who knew I was watching. They were disappointed.

They all felt they had a role to play in his comeback. “We did it. It’s done.” Jerry Seinfeld would scoff, like he did in an episode about the Yankees. “They did. You watched.”

But this emotional turbulence, doesn’t happen in arts or music. There is no finality to a performance, a film or a rhythm. A film can linger in your head much after the curtains come down, a soaring tune in a musical encore will prosper when the crowds join along. It will make it better. But sports has a cruel ending. It lands in a thud for half the people participating. That’s what’s uplifting about sport for one half and that’s what’s enervating for the other half.

Federer fans around the world rooting for him and watching him yesterday felt how they had a piece of the 2017 Australian Open silverware in their pockets. Sitting in a hospital cafe and dying to be isolated (and many a times hoping Nadal’s knee gave way during the final), I felt exactly the same.

I was part Don Quixote-part John Snow last evening. The sheer stupidity of it all rankles but it also sends all the sporting minions in my brain into a frenzy. It’s that burst of endorphins when that favorite gelato flavor back from an Italian countryside parlour has suddenly been sighted in Malleshpallya. (Never happened, but you get the point.)

I went through a major tennis tournament in my lifetime which Federer won and I didn’t see a single point. This worked. 4 knock out games against Nadal since 2008 in Grand Slams, I see each of them and Federer loses each of them. As long as I haven’t jinxed this already, I think I will give up watching Tennis till Federer plays.

Also, I might just support Nadal, the next time. He is my new favorite underdog.