Legendary European Roger Federer Wins Record 15th Grand slam Title !!!
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Posted 07/05/2009 @ 5 :43 PM
By Pete Bodo
Ultimately, it may be remembered by tennis historians and students of the game as The Tiebreaker, II (That Bjorn Borg-John McEnroe 18-16 fourth-set tiebreaker in the 1980 Wimbledon final will always lack a numeral). Only this time, the theme wasn't the ferocity of the clashing wills or the velocity of the serves and passing shots. The Tiebreaker, II, will be discussed in hushed tones, always with a hint of pity (among the kind) or triumphalism (among the callous), because of the enormous, nearly tragic error it embodied, and the way that critical misjudgment by Andy Roddick opened the floodgates of glory for Roger Federer.
It happened like this: Roddick, playing at the peak of his game, had won the first set and capitalized on two errors by Federer to build a 6-2 lead in the second-set tiebreaker - four set points for a two-set lead. Federer wiped away the first three of those points with a clean backhand winner, an ace, and an unreturnable service. Roddick had one more chance, and he went bold. He hit a second serve and set up a perfect forehand approach. As he hurtled toward the net behind his crisp shot, Federer hit a forehand down the line. The ball looked as if it were going out. Pete Sampras, whose surprise appearance a little earlier in the Royal Box had sent a restless murmur through the crowd, certainly thought it was heading that way. "It looked to me like Andy just changed his mind," Pete told me later. "That was a huge moment."
Roddick speared the awkward, high-backhand volley and drove it way wide. He explained later: "There was a significant wind behind him on that side. It was gusting pretty good at that time. When he first hit it, I thought I wasn't gonna play it. Last minute, it looked like it started dropping. I couldn't get my racket around on it. I don't know if it would have dropped or not."
Nobody will ever know - the waters bursting forth carried away that shot - as they did so many other breathtaking winners and agonizing errors hit by the two men. It took those waters a long time to reach flood stage and sweep Federer into the vault of history, and for that we must credit Roddick. He miraculously recovered his composure almost immediately, and continued to play commanding tennis on equal terms with Federer for the rest of the match. He surrendered the bone when he was broken for the first time, in the 77th and final game of the match. The final score was 5-7, 7-6 (6), 7-6 (5), 3-6, 16-14.
By the time it was all over, the sky over Hampstead Heath bore traces of evening rose and the elapsed time stood at 4:08. The match was so long that it seemed as if The Tiebreaker, II had occurred in another time and another place, perhaps when men wore those long white trousers Federer had on in the warm-ups through an entire match. And to his credit, Roddick found the determination and composure to make it seem that something as ghastly as that second-set tiebreaker could only have happened to someone else - not the 26-year old Yankee who on this day matched Federer's ground play, and was unperturbed by seeing Federer nearly double his own ace count, 50-27.
So much for the universally-held idea that this was to be a battle of Roddick's monstrous serve against Federer's return and his fetching arsenal of groundstrokes. Roddick put it this way, when I asked if this reverse mirror-image surprised him as it did most of us. "I don't know. You know, he served great. I didn't get a lot of second looks. I felt like when we were in rallies for the last couple of sets, I was actually doing all right and holding my own, if not more. But he just served great. He did what he had to do. If he wouldn't have served as well, I'd probably be sitting here in a better mood."
Here are some numbers to play with: 42 percent of Roddick's serves went unreturned, compared to Federer's 46 percent. Roddick put 70 percent of his first serves into play, compared to Federer's 64 percent (put into context with Federer's ace count - this is a tribute to Federer's superb placement). Roddick's fastest serve clocked in at 143 mph, but Federer was right up there with 135. Yet all of this wonderful serving - and trust me, it was like watching twin, competing fireworks displays, the engineer behind each determined not to be outdone by the other - was mere background for the battle of will and nerves.
Roddick's greatest triumph was his ability to rebound from that devastating second-set tiebreaker and continue to play what may be remembered as the match of his life. Federer's towering achievement (leaving out the little detail about this being his record 15th Grand Slam title) was his ability to escape the second-set gallows and then never, ever grow discouraged as Roddick rained down hail fire and whistled Nadal-esque rockets past him from the baseline.
There was, however, one oddity about this confrontation: the lack of serve-and-volley play by both men on a day when they both served lights-out. Roddick won three of his four serve-and-volley points, while Federer won four of his seven direct advances on the net. Roger seemed determined to show that he would, over time, win off the ground; Roddick appeared to reply, "No way." At first it appeared suicidal, but it slowly morphed into a monument to Roddick's improved game and his combative spirit.
Federer's poise underscored a reality of the Swiss gentleman's career that is easily neglected while everyone focuses on the apparent ease of his game and his signal aplomb. Roddick put it best when he was asked to comment on Federer's qualities as a champion. "I don't know where to start there. . . He was having trouble picking up my serve today for the first time ever, but he just stayed the course. . . You didn't even get a sense that he was even really frustrated by it. He just toughed it out. He gets a lot of credit for a lot of things, but not how a lot of the time, how many matches, he kind of digs deep and toughs it out. He doesn't get a lot of credit for that because it looks easy to him (sic) a lot of the times. But he definitely stuck in there today."
For his part, Sampras said: "Roger has that ability to make the tough things look easy. He was also a little lucky today, but that's not surprising. The great ones are always a little lucky."
Ultimately, the kind of patience to which Roddick alluded - "patience" being a word not frequently applied to a man as mercurial and fleet as Federer - was not just the key to this match, but to the new champion's entire year so far. Here was a man many were willing to write off as a spent cartridge after his game and customary sangfroid and confidence appeared to utterly desert him in the Australian Open final.
Here was a man who seemed in utter disarray during the early U.S. hardcourt season, the pliant and easygoing genius devolving into a racket smashing, suddenly introverted and belligerent champion who appeared to feel - for the first time - the full weight of his obligations as the greatest player of his and perhaps any time.
Here was a man who struggled, sometimes mightily, when the one major title that eluded him - and which held the key to his legacy - was offered up to him on a gilt-edged plate by virtue of Rafael Nadal's shocking loss on Parisian clay.
Here was a man who was thrown an assortment of knuckle and curve balls in the way of opponents and twists and turns of fate on the road to his French Open and Wimbledon titles.
Through that entire period, Roger was sometimes moved to say what he must have felt - that not even a champion of his caliber is absolved from the ups-and-downs of life. There's nothing wrong with Roger Federer. There was nothing amiss in his life or game that the challenge presented by Grand Slam events couldn't dispel or relegate to the deep background. There was nothing wrong with his attitude, nor any game-changing power shift threatening to deny him his place in history.
That's patience: the singular characteristic of every great champion who's ever hefted a racket.
By contrast, the most menacing emotion a player of any level has to deal with is fear, or succumbing to nerves when it most counts. Today, by the time the match rose to the plane of an epic, Federer was insulated from trepidation by his patience and experience. As he said:
"I used to get nervous when a friend would come watch me play as a kid, and then it was my parents, and then it was legends and people I really - who mean something. Today, it's okay. Today, anybody can come and watch me play. I don't get nervous anymore. Today with Pete (Sampras) it was a bit special, you know. When he walked in and I saw him for the first time, I did get more nervous, actually."
After sheepishly confessing this apparent contradiction, Federer also revealed that he took the trouble to mumble a well-disguised "hello" to his pal Sampras, in one of his moments wandering at the baseline below the Royal Box. "That's unusual," he admitted. "But I thought, I don't want to be rude, you know?"
As is often the case when great accomplishments are logged, there was a sort of tristesse after Federer secured the title. This was less evident in the winner's press conference (at times, it was downright jolly) than in the spent atmosphere hanging over all of Wimbledon. This was a sort of symbolic victory for Roddick; he fought so well, so hard, and so bravely that the quality of the match overshadowed even the majesty of Federer's achievement. Not that Federer begrudged him. He didn't need to ride out of Centre Court in his white military-style jacket, on the back of an elephant.
Federer was rather idiotically asked if he felt like he's the "happiest person," and he fielded the question with more attention than it probably deserved: "I don't know. . . I mean, I'm very happy. I don't know if I'm the happiest person in the world. I don't think so. I think there's many happy people out there. Tennis doesn't make you - it doesn't do it all. There's more to life than just tennis. But I feel great."
The obligatory question about Rafael Nadal's absence from the draw was bound to come up, and when it did, Roger said he didn't feel the situation diminished his achievement by one iota. "I don't think it should," he said. "Everybody expected (Andy) Murray to be in the finals. He wasn't there. It's not the mistake of the one who wins in the end. . . You never know how he (Rafa) would have played, but it's sad he couldn't even give it a fair chance. Tennis moves very quickly, you know."
Yesterday, it moved very quickly indeed - at about 143 and 135 mph, respectively. But the most impressive number on this historic day was a much smaller one, 15.
Good night, everyone - travel day tomorrow. See y'all on Tuesday.
http://tennisworld.typepad.com/tenni...009/07/15.html
Prakash raj to vadivelu: adhennada moonja mattum verrappa vechi pesittu irukka aaana kaal aadudhu :lol2:Quote:
Originally Posted by Plum
Missed this one completely. Thanks sivank bro. Please continue to post here :).
Quote:
Originally Posted by sivank
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/op...t-edcohen.html
GLOBALIST
The Federer Mystery
Published: July 8, 2009
NEW YORK — After losing to Jimmy Connors in 16 consecutive matches and then doing the unthinkable by winning, Vitas Gerulaitis commented: “And let that be a lesson to you all. Nobody beats Vitas Gerulaitis 17 times in a row!”
Tennis can be a crushing sport. Andy Roddick must have had Gerulaitis’ sinking feeling many times in the course of his 19 defeats in 21 matches to Roger Federer. I watched several of those encounters and Roddick, hustling through his unvarying game, tugging at his sweat-soaked shirt, resembled a guy banging his head against a wall.
It was different in Sunday’s epic Wimbledon men’s final. A slimmer, smarter, more purposeful Roddick played the game of his life, holding serve 37 times in a row and reinventing his long vulnerable backhand as a down-the-line weapon of choice, before coming up short against the Federer machine. The case that Federer, 27, is not the greatest player of all time has become untenable.
It’s not merely Federer’s five U.S. Opens, three Australians, one French and six Wimbledons — a record of 15 Grand Slam singles titles, one better now, as the world knows, than Pete Sampras. It’s not just his 21 consecutive Grand Slam semifinals. It’s not only his relentless consistency, uncanny timing, impossible angles, ferocious forehand, dinking deftness or big-point cool.
No, there’s something else at work here. People develop Federer obsessions the way teenagers have crushes. They can’t get the guy out of their heads. The late novelist David Foster Wallace, a devotee, said of one Federer forehand against Andre Agassi that, “It was impossible. It was like something out of ‘The Matrix.’”
I think that gets us close to the heart of the matter. Let me put this bluntly: Is Roger Federer part of a Matrix-like artificial reality or is he flesh and blood?
During the final, I couldn’t help focusing on three things. The first was the button on Federer’s Nike shirt. Through more than four hours of punishing tennis, sun-baked by British standards, it remained buttoned up. I mean, come on!
Think back to the upstart Andy Murray, the latest Brit who couldn’t quite, in his losing semifinal to Roddick. The Murray shirt was unbuttoned, of course, and somewhat disheveled, like his game on the day, and there was absolutely no question about the young man’s appurtenance to the human race, a rather surly branch of it at that.
The second was the absence from Federer’s face of even a bead of sweat as droplets poured from Roddick’s forehead and slid from the underside of his endlessly adjusted cap — further evidence for The Matrix theory.
The third was the fact that Federer wore a belt — a belt — in his stylish shorts, as if he was ambling through a Calvin Klein ad rather than serving 50 nonchalant aces and putting on a record-breaking athletic display.
Perfection is always a little unworldly, the more so when it’s packaged in Switzerland, and of course perfection can be galling. I wanted Roddick to win because he may never play that well again while Federer will seldom play much less well. I wanted Roddick to win because he broke a sweat.
So is Federer real, or is he in fact the computer-simulated perfect tennis player, a science fiction hero, his body heat drawn invisibly into energy creation, switching from slice to topspin backhand on the basis of some nerd’s formula no opponent can grasp or grapple with for long?
I know, Federer broke down at the Australian Open after his five-set loss to Rafael Nadal in February, sobbing into the microphone and saying, “God, it’s killing me.” A few weeks later, in Miami, he lost the plot entirely during an error-strewn semifinal loss to Novak Djokovic, smashing his racket as he often did during his tantrum-filled youth.
My colleague Christopher Clarey wrote then that it “was like watching the owner of a health food store start fumbling through his desk drawer for a long-lost pack of cigarettes.”
Case closed, it seems. Federer, he of the warm smile and perfect love affair with Mirka Vavrinec, is indeed human. He rages, he cries, he gets sick, he has back aches and doubts, and occasionally he just can’t take it any more.
Unless, of course, all this is only further proof of the devious genius of Federer’s cyber-creators, who imbued him with a touch of human vulnerability in order to lull young upstarts like Murray and Djokovic and Nadal into thinking he was past his peak, and so open the way for the French and Wimbledon triumphs this year.
Perhaps I’m over-suspicious, or undergoing a severe case of obsessive envy, but when Vavrinec gives birth in the next few weeks, I’d say there’s a case for the Association of Tennis Professionals ordering a quick examination of what flows in the baby’s veins.
And then of course, as a last resort, we can ask the masterful, charming and irresistible Federer to take the red pill and reveal all to the human world.
Roger Federer: By The Numbers
With his epic 5-7, 7-6 (6), 7-6 (5), 3-6, 16-14 victory over Andy Roddick in Sunday's Wimbledon men's final, Roger Federer bagged his 15th major championship. The victory propelled the 27-year-old Swiss past Pete Sampras atop the all-time Grand Slam leaderboard, further bolstering his argument for Greatest Of All-Time status.
Here's a numerologist's-eye view of Federer's unsurpassed greatness.
0 -- Losses in Grand Slam tournaments since Wimbledon 2004 in 119 matches against players outside the top five. Federer's last such loss at a major came against No. 30 Gustavo Kuerten at the '04 French Open.
1 -- Opponents who have defeated Federer in a Grand Slam final (Rafael Nadal).
2 -- Men who have achieved a career Golden Slam, winning each of the four majors plus an Olympic gold medal. Federer is one. Andre Agassi is the other.
3 -- Seasons where Federer has won three of the four Grand Slams (2003, '04 and '07).
4 -- Different surfaces where Federer has won Grand Slams: grass, clay and two different kinds of hard courts. Only Agassi has equaled the feat.
5 -- Consecutive U.S. Open victories from 2003 through 2008, an open era record.
6 -- Years without losing a match on grass. Federer won 65 straight matches on his favorite surface between a first-round loss at Wimbledon 2002 and last year's final.
7 -- Consecutive years with at least one Grand Slam title. Only Borg (1974-81) and Sampras (1993-2000) have longer runs, which Federer can match in 2010.
8 -- Losses suffered throughout his streak of 21 consecutive appearances in Grand Slam semifinals.
9 -- Career ATP singles titles on clay, traditionally his weakest surface.
10 -- Consecutive Grand Slam finals reached between Wimbledon 2005 and the '07 U.S. Open, a record. Federer also owns the second-longest streak, his current run of six from the '07 French Open through Wimbledon '09.
11 -- Grand Slam titles won from 2004 through '07, an all-time record for major titles in a four-year span (male or female).
17 -- Countries where Federer has won ATP singles titles: Australia, Austria, Canada, People's Republic of China, England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Portugal, Qatar, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, United Arab Emirates and the United States.
18 -- Consecutive Grand Slam tournaments where Federer was seeded No. 1 from the '04 French Open through '08 Wimbledon, a record.
20 -- Appearances in Grand Slam singles finals, where he's 15-5. Ivan Lendl (19) held the all-time mark until this year.
21 -- Consecutive appearances in Grand Slam semifinals, perhaps the most extraordinary metric of Federer's otherworldly consistency.
24 -- Appearances in the finals of ATP Masters Series events, a record. His 15 victories in these prestigious tournaments ranks second all-time to Agassi (17).
26 -- Consecutive matches won against opponents in the top 10 from October 2003 through January 2005, a record.
34 -- Consecutive victories at the U.S. Open from 2004 through last year, an open era record. Federer is the only player in history to win 34 or more consecutive matches at two different Grand Slam tournaments (in addition to his Wimbledon streak from '03 through '08.)
56 -- Consecutive wins on hard courts during 2005 and '06, an open era record.
94.3 -- Percent of singles matches (247-15) won from 2004 through '06.
182 -- Victories in major tournaments (against 26 losses), a win percentage of 87.5 percent. The only other men's players in the open era with winning percentages above 80 are Bjorn Borg (89.8), Rafael Nadal (85.7), Pete Sampras (84.2), Jimmy Connors (82.6), Ivan Lendl (81.9), John McEnroe (81.5), Andre Agassi (80.9) and Boris Becker (80.3).
237 -- Consecutive weeks spent at No. 1, a record. Federer is the first player to reign atop the ATP rankings for four consecutive years from Feb. 2, 2004, through Aug. 18, 2008.
$48,072,634 -- Career earnings as of June 2009 according to ATPWorldTour.com, an all-time record.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200...y.the.numbers/
Year Wise results of Roger Federer Post 3:(YWRRF 3)
1996:
30.12.1996 - 05.01.1997
JUNIOR - 33RD COFFEE BOWL
San Jose, Costa Rica | Junior | hard [o]
R128 Bye
R64 Federico Cardinali ARG 6-1 6-1
R32 Diego Ayala USA 4-6 1-6
Doubles with: Jerome Ferrari (SUI)
R32 Arquez
Nastari ARG
VEN
6-4 6-4
R16 Schwarzler
Smejda AUT
AUT
6-7 6-7
28.12.1996 - 29.12.1996
JUNIOR - 33RD COFFEE BOWL, QUALIFYING
San Jose, Costa Rica | Junior | hard [o]
R32 Bye
R16 Carlos Vargas PAN 6-2 2-6 6-0
22.12.1996 - 28.12.1996
JUNIOR - 19TH CASABLANCA CUP
Tlanepantla, Mexico | Junior | hard [o]
R64 Mathias Schwarzler AUT 6-3 4-2 RET
R32 Sebastien Aickele GER 6-7 6-3 5-7
Doubles with: Sven Swinnen (SUI)
R32 Golovanov
Labadze RUS
GEO
6-2 1-6 7-6
R16 Gruber
Zlatnik AUT
AUT
4-6 7-6 7-5
QF Aniola
Schaul POL
LUX
4-6 2-6
18.12.1996 - 21.12.1996
JUNIOR - 19TH CASABLANCA CUP, QUALIFYING
Tlanepantla, Mexico | Junior | hard [o]
R64 Angel Garcia-Lopez MEX 6-0 6-1
R32 Jonathan Hauswaldt MEX 6-1 6-1
R16 Gilberto Gutierrez MEX 6-1 6-1
08.12.1996 - 15.12.1996
JUNIOR - 40TH SUNSHINE CUP
Delray Beach, United States of America | Junior | clay [o]
RR Petr Kralert CZE 6-1 0-6 1-6
RR Adrian Sr. Garcia CHI 5-7 6-2 6-2
RR Balazs Vaci HUN 5-7 2-6
RR Han-Hui Tsai TPE 6-3 6-0
Doubles with: Michel Kratochvil (SUI)
RR Kralert
Tabara CZE
CZE
5-7 2-6
RR Jancso
Vaci HUN
HUN
6-0 6-4
RR Cheng
Tsai TPE
TPE
2-6 4-6
22.07.1996 - 28.07.1996
JUNIOR - EUROPEAN INDIVIDUAL CHAMPIONSHIPS
Hatfield, Great Britain | Junior | carpet [i]
R128 Xavier Malisse BEL 2-6 1-6
Doubles with: Jun Kato (SUI)
R128 F Babej
M Grolmus SVK
SVK
2-6 1-6
15.07.1996 - 21.07.1996
JUNIOR - SWISS JUNIOR TOURNAMENT
Davos, Switzerland | Junior | clay [o]
R64 Lukas Rhomberg AUT 6-1 6-0
R32 Marc-Olivier Baron FRA 7-6 6-3
R16 Nathan Healey AUS 7-6 4-6 4-6
Doubles with: Jun Kato (JPN)
R32 Bye
R16 Bye
QF Asturias
Parsons GUA
CAN
2-6 2-6
10.06.1996 - 16.06.1996
JUNIOR - AVVENIRE MEMORIAL MARIO BELARDINELLI
Milan, Italy | Junior | clay [o]
R64 Guillermo Coria ARG 1-6 2-6
27.05.1996 - 02.06.1996
JUNIOR - TROFEO NETTUNO
Bologna, Italy | Junior | clay [o]
R64 Maxim Belski BLR 1-6 3-6
http://www.rogerfederer.com/en/roger...cfm?uYear=1996
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZo1kOeHB40
Michael Jordan, Tiger woods, Pete Sampras, John Mcenroe and Serena Williams in this ad for Roger's 15.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_QEcgzwpeY
Net jets congratulates Roger Federer on his record breaking 15th Grandslam title.
Trailer from interview I did with Rio Ferdinand
by Roger Federer (videos)
1:53
On Monday, Nike arranged for Rio Ferdinand to come by and interview me about the Wimbledon win and a few other things. It made a nice change to speak with a fellow athlete. I didn't know Rio before, but he was a cool guy and good fun. Check out this trailer, the full interview will go up on YouTube in the next few days.
http://www.facebook.com/video/video....1524705&ref=nf