Federer no longer No. 1, but still king
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| (Picture courtesy: Esther Lim [WikiMedia Commons]) |
By Meghana Bhat
BANGALORE (Jan. 31)—Sometimes it seems as though Roger Federer was put on this Earth to sweep away all the Grand Slam titles. But of late it seems as if he is here to make his opponents look good. And in the latest Australian Open, he did it again. But this doesn’t mean the curtain is coming down on the Swiss legend’s tennis career.
Rarely has the sport been blessed with such dominance, class and wonderful talent, providing fans with competitive and exquisite tennis for more than a decade. Throughout his career, Federer has delivered crisp shots from the baseline, has had seamless serves with perfect timing and a strong singlehanded backhand that is almost hard to return. This magic is still very much shining.
Federer seemed an impossible act to follow when he was in his prime. He grabbed every Grand Slam title going. Such is his class and excellence in tennis that in 2004 he won three of the four Grand Slams—11 titles—and had record of 74-6 wins in the entire year. This achievement was all the more remarkable in that he did so without a coach.
He is one of seven male players to have won the career Grand Slam—clay, hard, carpet and grass court. He is also the only male player in tennis history to have reached the final of each Grand Slam tournament at least five times and the final of each of the nine Masters tournaments of the Association of Tennis Professionals.
Some people say that Federer, aged 30, is over the hill. But every time the critics say this, Federer pulls off a marquee victory, silencing them. In the ATP World Championship 2011, Federer showed a different class and power game altogether by defeating Nadal 6-3, 6-0. And he did this in his 30s, too. So why write him off?
Fed-Ex—as his detractors call him is 30—and has hardly had a break from the game. He hasn’t won a Slam for two years now. While there’s no denying that he is losing a measure of the touch and the air of unbeatability he had in his 20s, it’s a testament to his genius that he still reaches so many semis and finals. If he was considered to be losing his tennis strokes, the man would not have made it to the semis or the finals easily in every match.
Federer can surely go on playing tennis into his early 30s. Andre Agassi did so and so did Pete Sampras. These two men or legends of their time, won a major in their 30s. With the way Federer is delivering in his matches, it’s a safe bet that he has a chance of winning another major in his 30s and that retirement can wait.
For Federer, tennis has always been a sport where players should predominantly call the shots. But when he lost Wimbledon against archrival Nadal in 2008, a lot of tennis pundits questioned him and his style of tennis. Since then, he has been hounded by the question of whether he has truly earned his status as the greatest player of all time.
It has taken him 15 years to accumulate 16 Grand Slams, 70 career titles, and the world No. 1 ranking for 285 weeks. There has not been any player in tennis who has demonstrated this kind of intensity and passion for so long. Isn’t this enough to show that Federer is indeed the greatest player in tennis history? He has set the standard for generations to come.
Every era has a great player who dominates. Every era also has a player who defeats that very great player. At Wimbledon in 2001, Pete Sampras’s reign on the grass court came to an end at Federer’s hands. The same is bound to happen to Federer.
Questioning a player of Federer’s caliber makes one believe that tennis pundits love writing off a player just after a loss. Of course, Federer has plenty of tennis left in him. It’s also true that there’s no hope of him regaining the No. 1 position. But he has another one or two more Grand Slams waiting to embrace him. It may not be the French Open as long as Nadal is there. But the Wimbledon trophy may have his name carved on it again in the next two years.
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