By now, most people have already exhausted the adjectives to describe this once in a generation tennis superstar. Never has a player dominated men's tennis as much as this genius has. Yes Pete Sampras won 7 Wimbledon's and 14 Grand Slam titles overall. But he did it over a longer period of time. What Federer has done is just mind boggling. At 26, he is a 12 Grand Slam title owner, and his first title was Wimbledon 2003. In a span of 4 years, he has 3 Australian Opens, 5 Wimbledons and 4 US Opens. And he has won the Wimbledon-US Open combination for the last 4 years. No one had accomplished that feat.
Many people still are of the opinion that he has not had challenging rivalries. Well, my simple argument is that Federer is just so so good that no one has been able to challenge him. Yes except for Nadal at the French Open, everytime he has been put under pressure, he has found answers and come out on top. The fascinating part about this year's US Open was the fact that he was never at his peak all through the tournament but yet in the end was the one holding the beautiful trophy!!!.
He definetely struggled in the first sets against Isner and Lopez but once it got to the quarterfinals, he was very focussed and hanging in there and finding ways to win. He did that against Roddick, dented his booming serves, was able to mentally slog it out against Davydenko in the semis and finally in the finals, against a fantastic player in Novak Djokovic, he somehow found answers to win two close tiebreakers and then his service was on song and was able to wrap up the match in straight sets.
This tournament showed that to beat Federer, he has to have a really really bad day at work or the opponent, no matter how great he is, has to play at double his capacity and that too for the entire duration of the match. Its not enough if they maintain a high level of play for 1 set and then fade away. Thats what most players do and end up losing the game.
Hats off Roger Federer. You have made tennis admirers all over the globe extremely happy with your game as well as your humility, conduct and personality. Sports needs more champions like you!!!
5 comments:
now, only 1 more tournament to win this year..the masters..come on roger!! do you know where i can find the hilites for the finals? had to follow the match on the net, heard the commentary only...i believe the no-look backhand volley was one of the best shots of the tournament!
Federer is good, but not great man. Agreed, he was run close in the US Open finals, but somehow it is difficult to accept that he is the best, ahead of Sampras!!!
praveen g k!! now, is this who we used to call 'vadru'? neways, i think federer is on his way to becoming great..i adore sampras and what he has done...but the match between sampras (my idol then) and fedex at wimbledon told me that this guy was special...fedex has mellowed over the years and built on his game..today, he can challenge anyone on any court because of his style of playing and the strokes he manages to conjure!
once he wins the french open(which will happen pretty soon, i personally think), i guess the whole world will agree that he is the GREATEST person ever to pick up a raquet!
GK sir!, why is it difficult to accept the fact that he is the best?. My view is that Federer's game is more complete than Pete's game. Thats my opinion though!!
Thanx for the comments anyway
Battery, this "genius" GK is a friend of mine. Actually, he is my UAH friend's roommate in Boston and he is a very multi-talented human!!!
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