What great players offer to the sport of tennis – From Pete to Roger to Rafa to Nole

Millions follow the F1 season, the English Premier League, the UEFA Champions League and the ATP world tour. But there are only a few who follow all these events and I classify myself into that lot. Having said that, it’s hard not to have a favorite among these and when I get pushed to the wall to pick one I choose the ATP world tour. Isn’t it absolutely fascinating to see those one-on-one tussles on a tennis court where plenty of qualities, from shot-making to nerves, are put to test for hours before, finally, a winner emerges? Each year tennis players go through the Masters’ tournaments, the Majors (the 4 Grand slams) and finally the tour finals held at London’s O2 arena at the end of the season. If a player’s standard falls , he can rest assured of his ranking dropping considerably. That makes it important for each of the top players to maintain their level of consistency and at the same time be fit throughout the season.

When you talk about consistency and being perpetually fit you don’t have to beyond that man Roger Federer. We don’t often see him pull out of tournaments due to injury. And any tennis follower would know about how he has raised the standard of the sport through his exploits. In the 80′s we had Borg, McEnroe, Connors, Lendl, Becker and Edberg. In the 90′s we had Sampras & Agassi. Sampras took game to new heights, heights that hadn’t been seen in the 80′s or anytime before. But when Roger Federer came along, I told myself – he is the ultimate, the greatest of all time, the unbeatable. He took his game to such a level that, in more ways than one, he raised the bar for every aspiring tennis player.

Being an ardent fan, I never liked to see RF losing and you can imagine what I (and millions of others) might have gone through seeing him lose consistently to that incredible workhorse, the matador Rafa Nadal. At first, there was one small consolation; Federer still owned the most important tournament of them all – Wimbledon. But then came 2008 and I thought – huh! Rafa has done the unthinkable. Nadal’s spectacular win over Federer in the final of the 2008 Wimbledon tournament made me wonder what or who had helped Rafa pull it off. Many would say it was Nadal’s coach and uncle, Toni Nadal. But I would say it was Roger Federer. Nadal was so determined to raise his level of tennis to beat the man who had owned the centrestage for years that he improved his game by leaps and bounds. The serve which was a weak link in his game was considerably improved and that transformed him into an all-conquering champion. The battle was always about Federer’s elegance vs Nadal’s horsepower, and by honing his horsepower so drastically, Nadal emerged triumphant on the biggest stage of all.

During the Rafa-Roger rivalry, there was a man going by the name Novak Djokovic who seemed to always make the semifinals of big tournaments, only to see either Rafa or Roger seeing him off. He mimicked great players on-court, played good tennis, used great sense of humor when addressing the press, but none of us believed he belonged to the elite group. ‘Nole’ he was called in some quarters, while some others called him ‘Djoker’. As a Federer fan, whenever I went through the draw of a major tournament and saw Nole drawn to meet RF in the semifinals, I used to think, “easy path to the final for Roger”. And it wasn’t just me – almost every tennis follower felt the same way. All of that changed in 2011. Now I say Djokovic = Federer + Nadal. Incredible court coverage, fearless & powerful shot-making, nerves of steel and top fitness. Federer was always vulnerable in close matches against Nadal, Nadal always had fitness issues, but here is one man who from 2008 to 2011 has transformed himself into one of the best the game has ever seen. Again, Nole had to lift his game to match and conquer Roger & Rafa. He did it and he continues to do it. But I feel sure that before long, another great player will come along and lift his level to match up to the incredible standards set, first by Roger, then by Rafa, and now by Nole. That’s just how tennis’s greats are made!