Roger Federer Forever..
By abhishek at 19 November, 2007, 2:02 am
‘God made Roger Federer’ read a message in a church outside the center court at Wimbledon when Roger Federer was ready to take on his favourite opponent, Rafael Nadal. We all know how the two battled it out in the five sets at the Wimbledon finals, 2007 which Federer won with some flourishing display of strokes in the final set. Nadal matched him game to game and set to set, but, in the end when the photographs were being taken, Federer flashed his trademark smile and while Nadal eased up a bit after the presentation ceremony the ‘Nadal frown’ was quite evident. Well, they say there is no harm in losing to the best so long as you give it your best shot. But, the question is for how long?
Federer enters his 200th week as the World Number 1. He has beaten two of his fiercest rivals Nadal and Djokovic time and time again in 2007. He beat the former on his home turf; the clay court. He is only two Grand Slams away from equaling Sampra’s record of 14 who once upon a time like Federer, was accused of ‘Making the Wimbledon boring’ for this winning spree which lasted for most of the 1990’s when Becker “passed on the keys to the centre court to him in 1991.”
Just when the newspapers from the tennis loving countries started talking about “chinks” in Federer’s armour when he lost back to back matches; first to Nalbandian and then to González, Federer rescripted the headlines on Sunday when he lifted the Master Cup 2007 finals to beat David Ferrer in straight sets (6-2, 6-3, 6-2). I bet he loves Sundays as almost all his matches are scheduled on weekends since he keeps his appointment with every Grand Slam finals. (Image source: tennis.com)
The NYT summarises his losses very well. ‘This year, Federer lost six times in ATP Masters Series events: to Guillermo Cañas twice in March; to Filippo Volandri in May; to Novak Djokovic in August; and, most remarked of all, to David Nalbandian twice last month.’
Federer loses, but, not as a habit, but because he didn’t get off from the right side of his bed, or may be because quite genuinely his opposition beat him with some fearsome display of adrenalin. But, these losses are few and far between.
It reminds me of a line that some creative director of an ad agency came up with which went something like this - ‘The difference between a vacuous thought and a consistent idea is the difference between graffiti and Picasso.’ No player has been able to play Picasso, but, Federer himself.
Today, almost everything that Federer does is a chiche. Every sport has one such personality. Cricket had Bradman, Tiger Woods literally made it look like a walk in the Golf Park, Schumacher might come close to that stature in Formula 1. Similarly in Tennis, this 26 year old Swiss has already achieved that cult status where only his mind can be his biggest enemy. And that will happen only if he chooses to. Tennis aficionados have lost hope on the possibility of another living soul beating this man. So, they have started asking questions like ‘Will he give it all up because he is simply bored of being number 1 for all this while?” He is increasingly compared with Bjorn Borg who quit competitive tennis at 26 because he was either too bored beating opponents to win 5 wimbledons in a row or too overwhelmed with the attention that he received off the tennis court.
But, hang on! Federer says that his fans haven’t seen his best yet! Guess what the opponents might be thinking! A couple of days ago Roddick was so livid with Federer playing like God that he broke his racket and screamed in the middle of the match, ‘I’ll get better!’ Federer simply replied with a passing shot off the back hand and then looked at him as if to say, ‘Sorry mate, but, may be some other day!’ And the way the man is playing, the some other day will not come so soon.
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