A Good Year for Roger Federer

How do you define a good year in sport? especially for a man who year after year went about breaking records that he set, and which may never ever be broken?

Federer-Roger

To hope that the accomplishments of Federer would stand forever is to say you don’t want to see another great tennis player who can be greater than what this man has been over the past seven years. He would have called 2003 his best year for he won Wimbledon and showed the world that he was one for the big occasion.

If that was a good year for him, 2004 was even more special, winning three grand slam titles, becoming world No.1, and the year end number 1 ranking to go with the year ending championships. nobody had won 3 slam titles in a single season in Men’s tennis in 16 years since Mats Wilander in 1988. But if people thought that they’d witnessed something they wouldn’t see again for years to come, they were wrong. the feat would be repeated again in 2006, and 2007.

Records fell to the wayside as he won numerous accolades for his sportsmanship and humanitarian efforts. He became one of the greatest ambassadors of the sport of tennis, and by the end of 2007, he had 12 grand slam singles titles, two shy of Pistol Pete’s 14, and only the French Open missing from his repertoire. 2008 would solve all that, people said. Some even suggested that he’d win them all, plus the Olympic gold that he so much craved, having cruelly missing out in the previous edition.

The only blip in his otherwise glowing resume was 2008, a great year to any normal tennis player, but we’re not talking about normal people in this, are we? A bout of Mononucleosis, followed by a loss to Djokovic at the semi finals at Australian Open. The defeat at Roland Garros was humiliating to say the least, but that wouldn’t compare to the epic battle and the heart wrenching loss at Wimbledon less than a month later. It seemed like the end of the world, to have the one title he most treasured, forcefully prised from his hands, and Federer now stood in unfamiliar territory. Since 2003, he had lost at Melbourne Park in an epic semifinal to Marat Safin, an old adversary. Nadal had beaten him the previous four times at Roland Garros, so that was nothing new. But the runner up trophy at Wimbledon was like the end of the world and the obituaries came pouring.

Tears of joy that emanated at the Olympics Doubles gold medal at Beijing only makes you wonder, what if he could have won the gold there? How would he have reacted? He dreams of playing till the 2012 Olympics in London, on his favourite lawns of Wimbledon. But can he get the gold then, at 31 years of age? The emphatic victory at the 2008 US open was a relief, and people said he was back, but the damage was done. He surrendered his greatest possessions that he proudly carried for five years: The trophy at Wimbledon and the No.1 ranking was taken away from him and the man that he is, we would never know the emotional conflicts that he battled then.

This year began on an equally disappointing note. Some may never understand the concept of a grand slam final loss as being disappointing, but to Federer, being beaten by Nadal at that Australian Open was heart wrenching. He wept, and said to the whole world, ‘this is killing me.’ The hard court season was disastrous too, and we saw signs of the Federer of old, no, not the one that dominated world tennis for weeks on end. Rather the young Federer that threw racquets and cried, and screamed.

How could all that have changed with the news of his long time girlfriend expecting children, followed by their marriage? We may never know how it actually effected the change, but the fact remains, he came after his relatively small affair of a wedding to win everything that was in sight. Nadal was beaten at the finals of the Madrid Masters in straight sets. It did not matter that Nadal wasn’t there on the second sunday at Roland Garros. Nothing could have stopped Federer on that day from completing his career grand-slam, and tying with Pete Sampras‘s record of 14 majors. could there have been a more fitting occasion? One only had to wait for three weeks.

It is surprising how Wimbledon manages to churn out classics after classics at every year’s final, but nobody would complain if they saw what was on offer. Nobody even gave an outside chance to Roddick, and this was to be his 15th major without a sweat. It would indeed be his 15th, but not before Roddick took him through the longest fifth sets in Wimbledon history, and the longest in terms of games played. It was only fitting that the legends of the sport bore witness to the epoch making event. Every tennis player had a new benchmark to set itself against.

The number 1 ranking was won back, partly due to Nadal’s absence, but that is another point of discussion altogether. You can play the scenario in your mind over and over for the rest of eternity, as to what would have happened if Nadal was there across the net at Roland Garros or if he was even there to defend his title. But that is all you can do, to wonder. The fact remains that it’s over, and Nadal wasn’t there, and Federer took his chance. He was there for the last four finals, and you certainly can’t deny that he deserved it.

Even sweeter to him was the birth of his twin daughters, and his world didn’t revolve around him anymore. Bookmakers have placed the odds of his daughters being Wimbledon champions already, and we wouldn’t want to imagine what they could achieve. But right now, it is only fitting that Federer be given due credit for what he has achieved. He did become the ATP World Tour Champion after losing it to Nadal last year, and in the process becoming only the second person to do so. True, there have been further blips, including the baffling meltdown in the fifth set at US Open finals this year. Would he win back the year end championship at London this week? There couldn’t be a better end to this year, and maybe he will, maybe not. But considering what he has achieved, it doesn’t matter; it certainly has been a good year for tennis, and him, both personally and professionally.