Aren’t we all glad that we live in a tennis era where Roger Federer is playing in his topmost form? I for one feels that way. Just like being able to witness the rise of Tiger Woods and his phenomenal run through majors after majors. Surely, I’ve asked myself how it would have felt to ever see a young Jack Nicklaus mopping every competition from the field, year after year more than half a decade ago and since we could not bring back time and since there still no cable television at that time; I just contented myself with merely wondering. But I am sure glad that Tiger Woods had made golf such an exciting sport to watch with a phenomenal gameplay that is both astonishing and magical.
So is with the extremely skillful Roger Federer who just won his fifth straight Wimbledon title hours ago, surpassing another legendary Swiss player Sweden’s legendary tennis player in Bjorn Borg who was watching at the stands in the All England Club. Federer had stated how it made him so emotional to have his idol and compatriot watching him play and if you ask me, that is just how feel-good movies feel like, only that this is for real. And we could not blame Roger (Can I call him Roger?) if he feels like he is living a fairy tale story, having a fairy godfather watching by the stands, witnessing every moment that success comes to him—-like this time, winning in the All England Club after a match that proved to be the toughest for him in years with Rafael Nadal showing how he could be a real threat to his phenomenal run.
Yet, it should not be Bjorn Borg’s record that Roger was priming at. I feel so much that it is Pete Sampras amazing 7 Wimbledon title that he is aiming at. He is aiming for the best and he looks like he is never gonna stop until he reaches the apex of tennis glory. To be the best among the best.
The way he that he had played at this latest Wimbledon finals, there’s more reason to anticipate how he could break Sampras’ record in the soonest time possible. If you ask me, there is just nothing like him out there and I do not see any other player that could match his prowess on the court—-except perhaps on clay where he becomes a lesser tennis player (like every grass specialists had been such as Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi). His returns are so prolific that I have never seen such kind of accuracy in a player before, as if he had robotic eyesight that could designate a point at the other end of the court and then exactly bring the ball towards that point, like a Tomahawk missile guided by a programmed computer; hitting the target with enormous accuracy. To me, that is his greatest weapon. And this is the reason why Andy Roddick could not be fast enough to catch a return placed so far from where he stands guard and that’s why Nadal’s serve had many times been broken by this amazing return that Roger has. The only player that could perhaps effectively counter these spot-accurate returns is Boris Becker, the one player who could dive and run on the court like an agile Puma—-but sadly, he had already retired and had grown older.
That way—-with no notable rival on sight—-Roger Federer would certainly continue his phenomenal run on grand slam titles and would break every record that there is to break. He is just terrific. American legendary tennis player John McEnroe had once described him as a player that is so above the rest, a player playing in another level entirely, one that shoos in a different tennis altogether—one that we’ve never seen before.
This seems somehow to be a scary thought—especially if one is an ATP-ranked player who have grand slam ambitions—-but I am enjoying it nonetheless. To Roger Federer—-I take my hat off for you and a thousand applause goes with that.
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