“You can't explain it sometimes,” said Roger Federer, newly crowned 20-time slam champion, meekly shaking his head.  “It is just a feeling you get. It's like against Berdych, I felt, like, I'm probably going to lose this one. I was not negative, but I just felt like I saw a loss was coming somehow. Not because I was not feel good or anything, I just felt like maybe Berdych is really feeling it.”

The world number two, now by only 115 points, was referring to the nerves that cornered and threatened to suffocate him as he waited from morning until night, wondering how the various possible outcomes of his battle with Marin Cilic would impact his psyche. “Today for the finals, I didn't fall asleep very well after the Chung match. I think it surprised me that at this stage of a competition in semis, to get a walkover, that was very odd for me. I couldn't fall asleep until about 3 in the morning. All of the next day I was already thinking about how should I play Marin, how cool would it be to win 20, but no, don't think of it, but how horrible would it be to lose it. I had it for over 36 hours, to be honest. It was a lot.”

Federer’s heightened nerves showed as he seemingly galloped down on victory. After cruising through an easy first set against a shaken and pained Cilic, Federer leading Cilic by two sets to one and a 3-1 lead in the fourth set, he collapsed into a sight that was not like him. He choked. His first serves began to misfire, his backhands tightened up, from the beginning of the 3-1 game he broke himself with four errors and his weakness served to kickstart Cilic’s game and emotion. His choke cost him five straight games.

Federer’s response to the crippling nerves was not to coolly navigate the issue in the typical manner he knows, but to play with an edge. He started to bellow “cmon” at a full strength far beyond the normal ring, he sarcastically slighted the umpire and linesmen. He, for the shortest interlude, even acquired a short, deep staccato grunt.  The strangest thing about the match was its duality. Between a combustible three sets of stress and nerve, Federer opened the match cruising through an effortless 6-2 first set, and he ended it with an anti-climactic final set, triumphing 6-2 6-7 6-3 3-6 6-1 to capture his six Australian Open title.

In his post-match press conference, Federer’s emotions threatened to take over at multiple periods and he failed to compose himself throughout. “When I start thinking about what I was going to say, every subject I touch actually is very meaningful and very emotional.” he said. “Thanking your team, congratulating Marin, thanking the people, thanking the tournament.”

“At the end, it's like one big party. But I hoped over time in the speech I would start to relax a little bit, but I couldn't. It was what it was. I wish it wasn't so sometimes. At the same time,” I'm happy I can show emotions and share it with the people. If I got emotional, it's because it was a full crowd again. No people in the stadium wouldn't make me emotional, I'll tell you that. This is for them really also.”

Federer’s victory took him to is now 20-time slam champion with 6 Australian Open titles and a grand total of 96 career singles titles. More importantly, however, it creates a different narrative for him, For the past 10 months, ever since he captured his 18th slam title against Rafa before showing up at the following tournaments looking glorious and free, it has become universally easy to wrap Federer around the narrative that he is playing for house money and because of the magnitude of the achievements he has already counted, his nerves and emotions are diminished. With his 20th slam, Roger Federer left that myth to die.