When My Good Self was a slightly younger lad than I am now, and grey hairs were nowhere to be seen, the road marking on my street were miraculously transformed into tennis courts come summertime.

And not just any old tennis courts.

Naturally enough we always played at Wimbledon.

Mostly in centre court, occasionally numbers one and two courts. We never bothered with the outside courts. They were for lesser mortals.

Borg and McEnroe were the kingpins of the men’s game. Navratilova and Evert the Queens of the women’s game.

My Good Self was a Borg/Evert fan. I admired Borg for his coolness and steely determination, Evert for her elegance and resilience.

These days we have the big three of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic in the men’s game and in recent years the Williams sisters in the women’s game, particularly Serena, although both are now in the twilight of their respective careers.

My Good Self is a great admirer of Roger Federer. I believe he is one of the greatest sportsmen of all time.

Winner of a record 20 Grand Slam singles titles, he has power, grace, style and sportsmanship.

In this year’s Australian Open he was beaten in the semifinals by Novak Djokovic. It is possible that his Grand Slam winning days are over. Maybe not.

A while back I happened to be wandering through an indoor tennis court. I noticed a quote there which was attributed to Federer.

‘Don’t practice until you get it right, practice until you can’t get it wrong’.

There’s a lesson in there somewhere.