Well in January on the day when Rafeal Nadal defeated Fernando Verdasco in the Semi-finals, I had told my friends that Federer will not win that title but he still will achieve his no 15 at Wimbledon. Now when I look back I realise that whatever I said that day was absoultely spot on. He lost at Australian Open and then went onto win the French Open and now clinched his no 15 here at Wimbledon.
Roger Federer achieved great milestones yesterday, he won his 15th Grand Slam, he appeared in consecutive 7th Wimbledon final and appeared in his 20th Grand Slam final, all of these stand as records. He has been regarded as one of the all time greatest and yes in the number of titles he has taken the first position. I read somewhere back that one thing that he could not do that the other greats did was to achieve back the no.1 spot in very less time after being dethroned. Now he has also done this, although taken the longest time (more than 40 weeks) but he achieved this feat yesterday and now is at the No.1 rank once again.
Being a huge Federer fan one cannot ask for more than this in a single day. Although every Grand Slam victory is a memorable one and this was special as he went past Pete Sampras yesterday. Still I don’t know why I was not that very happy in his victory. I don’t know why I felt that Federer should have lost, maybe because of the tennis that Andy Roddick displayed was remarkable. In the end i was actually heart broken to see Federer win the title(I never believed that this could ever happen). I can only say that yesterday Roddick deserved to win, he did everything correct except that he could not give the finishing touches when he should have. And Tennis is a funny game as Federer just broke one serve of Roddick in the complete match and still emerged the winner. I think it was only the experience of Federer playing in the Grand Slam finals that saw him cross the winning line once again to the delight of all his fans including me.
This was very evident when after the match one could hear huge roars of the name ‘Roddick’ from the crowd which actually showed that the people there love tennis more than any individual player. They also acknowledged the way Roddick played yesterday. That I feel was a great ovation to the game Roddick played. This is got to be his best ever performance ever I guess. As we say people only remember the victories and the winners and not how one has achieved them, which might make Roddick effort fade away in some time. But one thing is sure that he looks to be playing better with age.
I think I have said a lot about Roddick now and let me come back to my favourite Federer. He played one of his best tennis towards the end and the biggest of all held his nerve to clinch the title, something which he could not do last year. He also looks to be getting back to being the Roger Federer that we all know. He will surely be looking forward to no 16 in the US open now. As he also said that he was lucky to win this and also as there was no Nadal to defend his title he could get back his no.1 spot, but i feel luck always favours the brave, last year it was Nadal and now Federer. This Slam has ended the way i wanted it to but still one question still remain in my mind that did Federer defeat Roddick yesterday or Roddick lost to Federer.The result is the same but the meaning changes with the feelings. Once again Congratulations Federer but i would also give a standing ovation to Roddick for the game he displayed yesterday.
TREATISE 