It is more than a week that the curtain fell at Rolland Gorros where French Open 09 was held. And what a feast it was for Roger Federer. Among his many achievements, he become the second player (after Andre Agassi) in modern tennis history to be a winner of all Grand Slams titles viz: Wimbeldon (grass), US Open (hard) , Australian Open (hard) & of course now, the French Open (clay). Secondly, he has matched up with Pete Sampras in achieving fourteen Grand Slam Singles titles.
French open & clay court had eluded Roger Federer so far. This is the fourth consecutive year that he is coming to the finals of French open. This year he had a respite, for Rafael Nadal was not there in the Final to play against him. Instead, he played the giant killer Robin Soderling and humbled him to win the title.
It is very rare to see a player like Federer in Tennis. In these days of serve and volley power games, almost all players are very aggressive and they make it a point to show it off both on and off the ground. Here is a perfect gentleman of the game of Tennis. And a very disciplined one at that! Even outside court, he is a treat to watch. He emanates a personality full of positivity. However, at every winning, he had shown that he is human too. His emotions were very clear there for all to see. Why not, it is not every year that we see an all surface Grand Slam champ!
Another very important aspect of his personality is his knowledge of the game and its history. I had read reports of him choking up when receiving trophy from Rod Laver, one of the all time greats of the game. The same thing happened at this years French Open too, for he received the trophy from Andre Agassi, the only other player in modern history of the tennis to win all Grand Slam. His emotion packed acceptance speech showed his gratitude of receiving the award from Andre, another of the Tennis all time greats.
From Last year onwards I started seeing reports of the downslide of Federer. Going down to Nadal in both French open & Wimbledon last year started the tongues to wag, suspecting his invincibility. Again, this year he lost to Nadal at the Australian Open final. But Federer did not let his body and mind to get depressed. He kept at his dream, the dream of winning the French Open and matching the Grand Slam titles of Pete Sampras. This completely corroborates my belief that if you have a dream and you are putting your best efforts to achieve that, the whole world will conspire to let it happen. See, in French Open 09, there came a player called Soderling to defeat Nadal and remove the impediment for Federer to reach his dream.
It is people like Federer who runs and keep the real essence and beauty of the game of Tennis. Before him we had Pete Sampras. What a pleasure it was to watch him play and winning. He too was a true gentlemanly player. Players such as Federer and Sampras are the gems of the game.
Speaking of Pete Sampras, he was very thoughtful and decent to accept that it is Roger Federer who is the greatest player of modern Tennis. Sampras said that whether Federer wins French Open or not, having reached the final four times, he had proven that he is cut above the rest. While we acknowledge the greatness of Pete Sampras in accepting the Numero Uno position of Roger Federer, here is three cheers to the champ, ROGER FEDERER, who I think will go on to annex at least 2 more Grand Slam title that would enable to him reach and consolidate the unassailable position of the ALL TIME GREAT of TENNIS.
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