Roger Federer 2.0
“It’s been a long road, and sometimes windy, but feels surreal to be back at the top. I’m just happy to be healthy and playing tennis every day.” – Roger Federer after ensuring oldest number 1 next week
Switzerland is known for well-crafted and highly accurate clocks; with the same craftsmanship and accuracy, their son, Roger Federer mastered an art of reversing the clock of history of Tennis. 20 Grand Slam titles, 30 Grand Slam finals and now oldest (36 Years 195 Days) world number 1 in ATP men’s singles.
With Swiss maestro’s magical run after his longest ever break, following records got updated:
- Oldest No. 1 Player in ATP (36 Years 195 Days)
- Longest Gap between Stints as No. 1 (5 Years 106 Days)
- Longest Gap between first and most recent day as No. 1 (14 Years 17 Days)
- Total Weeks at No. 1 (303 Weeks)
During 2012 – 2016, Federer entered into 3 Grand Slam Finals, all lost against Djokovic. Young and power intensive baseline players like Nadal, Djokovic, Cilic, Potro etc. have almost chocked Swiss for the first time in his career. His Grand Slam tally literally refused to move from 17 for 4 consecutive years and many Tennis pundits (praising him right now as GOAT or Legend) advised him to quit Tennis.
Finally, due to off the field knee injury resulting in shock loss at Wimbledon semi-final in 2016, Federer put the curtains for rest of the season. Prior to that, he last conquered Grand Slam way back in 2012 at Wimbledon (17th Grand Slam in presence of his twin daughters; His twin sons were yet to born).
With such an illustrated career, anyone would have considered retirement. It’s not easy to battle against young players at old age. But he was not an ordinary sportsman but Roger Federer, the maestro who simply refused to quit. He decided to take 6 months break and work on his fitness.
He went to 17th Rank from 3rd Rank, but he didn’t care. He knew that a break was needed to rework on his body. Without that, he might have won a few matches against top ranked players but not all, which is not adequate to win Grand Slam in the knock out game of Tennis. He had worked very hard to convert one handed slice into lethal backhand to take on baseline players. He almost reinvented a perfect backhand towards the end of his career! It shows how much passion this maestro has for the game.
After updating strength and weapons, he fought through a draining battle before he set up a final clash with Nadal at Australian Open 2017. Nadal defeated him in 2009 final there and Federer almost cried there. 11-23 of Win-Loss with 35 years of age, Federer looked vulnerable; however, he pulled the match into the decider before he took a controversial medical time out. In the final set, Nadal has a break, and Federer returned back in a style to finally move his Grand Slam tally to 18.
Federer had already conquered his Achilles heel and rest of the season went smoothly. He added Wimbledon, three masters 1000, and two masters 500 before losing in semis of ATP finals. At one point, he was so close to dethrone Rafa from No. 1 Ranking, but his back troubles prevented it. He ended his season convincingly with 52-5 Win-Loss and 7 Titles; beating Nadal in all 4 encounters.
At the beginning of 2018, Nadal was whooping 1040 points ahead than Federer and no one had though of Federer clinching No. 1 so early. However, Nadal’s injury and Federer’s sublime performance against Cilic in the final reduced this gap to only 155 points. After winning 2018 Australian Open, he broke down into tears which shows his love and passion towards the game even after 20th Slam.
Fans were expecting Federer to clinch crown of No.1 during ATP Dubai (end of February). However, Federer shocked everyone by stepping in ATP Rotterdam. After 3 convincing victories, he finally got the Crown of No.1 and in style, followed by winning the tournament today. After today’s win, his total titles stand at 97, and Ranking Points at 10,105. Since 2013, he has crossed 10,000 points for the first time.
Roger, at 36, you inspire our generation to work hard and achieve harder. We wish you keep on breaking record tallies like this forever. Long live Roger Federer.
