Up side of it is it feels like Aamir khan...one blog a year.. :) (U patrons of this blog must be thanking heavens that I will be writing only 1 a year, but I may not be that kind to u guys!)..
One reason why I showed a stop sign to my laziness was that the topic popped up itself, without me having to go running wild behind it.. It was just last Sunday that arguably the greatest sporting event of the year ended..And this time it very much lived up to its name..
2 of tennis' greatest players perspired and inspired their way to the greatest tennis match in recent times.. The incessant rain at London along with the ever active Sun God in the United Kingdom added more drama to the event..
The match in itself was 4 hours 44 minutes long..Wait wait..Long is not the word.. It was just a measly 4 hrs 44 minutes short.. The way the two artists of the drama were playing, it seemed we could stay in front of the idiot box for another zillion years..It was tense, roller coaster like and an exuberant battle of the best...
Well u may argue that since the man I was backing won, this blog was written..Well that is partly true..Who would watch highlights of a cricket match India just narrowly lost...Thats natural..
Coming back to the artists of the showpiece..The man who lost first...Roger Federer...He
who is part of the endangered species of tennis players cos they dont make them like him anymore..A man bristling with talent, surely the most talented player to have ever walked on a tennis court... He sometimes has 2-3 shots for each occasion and surely that backhand to save matchpoint in the 4th set tiebreaker was unthinkable and surreal..And then the "challenger"..Rafa "vamos" Nadal... He is now the champion, no? I have rarely seen someone who is willing to retreive every ball as if his life depended on it.. A nerveless macho man with amazing resolve and brilliant concentration..
This is not the forum to discuss who is the better player and who will be better.. This is simply a celebration of the riches these guys have provided tennis fans over the past few years, especially the last 2 Grandslam events...
What makes a rivalry tick is if both guys on any given day can beat the other...From what I have seen Sampras-Agassi in the mid 90s was at par the Fedex-Rafa bull fight...Am not qualified enough to comment on Borg-Mac and Connors-Mac cos this was well before the 90s...
I just hope that these 2 guys continue what they do best, decimate opponents along the way and reach finals.. Cos simply put, this has been a salivating rivalry, one that will easily be the paradigm for more to come in this century..
I know for sure that the genius of Roger Federer will keep making semifinals and fi
nals on all surfaces for some time to come yet..Now its up to the man from Mallorca to follow suit... He sure has everything that takes to click on all surfaces..And yes, the more time Roger takes in exceeding Pete's tally of 14, the better it is for tennis fans and tennis per se.It means that Rafa has made it to more finals along the way and given life to this rivalry as well as to the tremendous sport that we all love..
