I have always followed tennis in print and once in a while watched a few highlights. In recent times never have I followed a tournament like the ongoing Australian Open. I must say I am enjoying it thoroughly.
I had read about Him a lot; quite a lot. I knew all about Him before I actually watched him play a complete match. With the way the sports journalists began to describe Him I thought He was Superman. I pictured Him returning every serve, winning every point, game, set, match and hence tournament. The time had finally come to see him perform. I told myself it wouldn’t be practical to expect all that I had imagined. Though a Superman, He was afterall a man.
When I did watch Roger Federer was playing in the Quarterfinals against Tommy Robredo. He won in straight sets. But He was said to be out of sorts. I wondered why? They said He had committed more unforced errors in that match than in the previous week. What? The no. of unforced errors He seemed to make was less than the average by a winner of a match. He was quite unhappy with that performance and the commentators mentioned that He missed his ‘usual overdrive’ gear that day. I wondered what that was.
Today, I saw it and am still finding it hard to believe what I saw. He thrashed(cant find a more appropriate yet decent word) the 6th seed Andy Roddick in straight sets winning the 13 of the last 17 games. It wasn’t Roddick’s fault. The way he played he could have beaten any other player on tour(save Nadal I guess). But Federer is not any other player. He converted winners of Roddick into his own. Most of His winners were within the six inches of the line. My head swirled seeing the way He played. This wasn’t the Perfectionist’s clinical annihilation of opponent. This wasn’t a champions revenge for a defeat in his first tournament of the year and neither was it a world no.1’s breezing past a lowly ranked opponent. It was … it was …out of this world.
I wonder now, if He is human and not from Krypton? Even all His challenges(of line decisions) turned out to right. As Vijay Amritraj said Federer must have apologized to Roddick for treating him like that. Roddick has been improving and is better than ever before and we saw that in the previous matches this year. Yet this happens. I cant imagine how Roddick must be feeling right now having lost 13 out of the last 14 times they played.
Humans may have sometimes have performed as well but hardly anyone’s head remained in the place. From where does this man get his modesty? Not that I am a big fan of modesty but how can a human stay calm after performing like that? Muhammed Ali called himself the greatest, Schumi jumped 5 storeys high, the Australians howled with glee and many others similarly but all that u get from this man is unreal. Seriously I think we have to put up the Interpol or CIA to dig up his real roots. Thank goodness he expressed that he was surprised and called it a highlight of his career. Maybe this was just another trick he pulled acting like a homo-sapien.
P.S: If u think all this was exaggeration, read what the great Nirmal Shekhar had to say: Hindu Sports Page 27/01
Why did He do it?
25 January 2007 by Vemana
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4 comments:
not big fan of modesty meself but thts how sum ppl deal with success tht can sumtimes b overbearing. i guess.
i'm no follower ov the game..but i love this post!! u simply can express so well!!
Humans may have sometimes have performed as well but hardly anyone’s head remained in the place. From where does this man get his modesty? Not that I am a big fan of modesty but how can a human stay calm after performing like that? Muhammed Ali called himself the greatest, Schumi jumped 5 storeys high, the Australians howled with glee and many others similarly but all that u get from this man is unreal.
amazing!! keep going!!
Fed express is a man machine. his skills are unparalled in the history of the game since the open era. playing brilliantly on almost every court, the only criticism that he receives is his inability to play like he usually does, on clay courts. but with the way he's playing and the overwhelming response to his game gives me the creeps thinking how the world will react when the sun eventually sets on this genius. Will remain a great player for many years to come, many records to be broken and still always humble and down to earth. take a bow feddy boy.
nice piece mate and i felt the same reading through those articles in the hindu, like going through a superman comic strip !lol
yes federer is the best right now...but i wanna see u post a blog on the recent french open....the way federer performed in tht!!!wanna get ur thoughts abt tht!!!tht is where i feel "He is a he".but as far as his modesty is concerned u r right...though there is some kind of arrogance in his modesty
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