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Roger Federer: old is gold

Switzerland's Roger Federer. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)
Roar Guru
17th February, 2018
10

Just by reaching the semi-finals of the 2018 Rotterdam Open Roger Federer became the oldest number one-ranked player in the history of tennis.

At 36 years and 195 days old he eclipsed Andre Agassi, who claimed the record in 2003 at 33 years of age.

Agassi was one of the first to congratulate Federer, tweeting Roger “continues to raise the bar in our sport. Congratulations on yet another remarkable achievement!”

Federer is back as number one after a gap of five years and 106 days. This in itself is a record for the longest time between reigns at number one. The champion chose to crack a joke at his own expense, tweeting “Apparently I’m the oldest tennis player with a #1 ranking. Somebody might have mentioned that to me already but I had a hard time hearing”.

Federer’s achievement in reaching the top of the ATP rankings is an even more remarkable story if one sees his tennis journey of the previous five years in general and the previous two years in particular.

If we go back to four years prior to the 2017 Australian Open, we see no grand slam titles after Wimbledon in 2012. He already had 17 majors, which in itself was an awesome tally, but it seemed he would not add to them.

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To his fans it was a bit strange to see their hero reaching, say, the semi-finals and losing. To the more discerning viewer, however, there were two important aspects.

First, Federer was normally winning against almost everyone and only unable to close out matches against his illustrious rivals Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic in the best-of-five matches at the grand slams – at the best-of-three masters and other matches he was holding his own against them. Hence it was theoretically possible that if their games slipped a bit or his improved, he would be back. 

The 2016 season, however, was a particularly disappointing year, starting with him losing to Djokovic in an Australian Open semi-final. It was the 45th meeting between the two great rivals and it was the first time that Novak took a career head-to-head lead against Federer by winning his 23th match to Fed’s 22. Was it to be symbolic of the beginning of the end? Possibly. 

(AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin, File)

The disappointments of 2016 continued, with Federer missing Rotterdam, Dubai and Indian Wells after he went through arthroscopic surgery to repair a torn meniscus. His return was scheduled at Miami, but he opted out due to a stomach virus. The clay season, as such, never his strongest suit anyway, saw him lose to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga at Monte Carlo and Dominic Thiem at the Italian Open. He had to opt out of French Open as well, ending his record 65 appearances at the grand slams.

Federer, however, prepared to return for the grass season, but he lost to Thiem at Stuttgart and Alexander Zverev at Halle. It seemed he had finally started to lose to others apart from Novak, Rafa and Andy Murray.

At Wimbledon he reached the semi-finals, where he lost to Milos Raonic. He was then out for the next six months due to injury. He even had to give up his Olympic gold medal dream. It seemed it was all over for the great champion, though he insisted he was taking a break to come back stronger. 

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Federer made a comeback just a year ago as the 17th seed at the 2017 Australian Open. People were doubting whether he would ever win one more grand slam, and regaining the world number one position looked impossible. He hadn’t won a single title in 2016, which was his first blank year since 2000.

It was the first time in 14 straight years that he was out of the world top ten. Ominously he had started losing to players other than his illustrious rivals at the top, which was surprising for a man nicknamed consistency.

However, Federer turned in a magical 2017. He won the Australian Open with a brilliant win over Rafa in the final by coming from a break behind in the final set. In this tournament he defeated four top-ten players back to back.

(AAP Image/Lukas Coch)

He won Wimbledon by defeating Marin Cilic in the final. He defeated his greatest rival, Rafa, three times more during the year. He had a 91.23 per cent success rate and won seven titles, including Indian Wells, Miami and the Shanghai Masters, where he had wins over Stan Wawrinka and twice again Nadal in finals matches. 

Federer had a chance to reclaim number one by winning last year’s Cincinnati tournament. In fact it was something of a dream set-up, as Cincinnati was the only masters tournament neither he nor top seed Nadal had never met in, and both he and Nadal had a chance to be number one by winning the tournament.

However, Federer’s withdrawal led to Nadal regaining the number one ranking after three years. Rafa of course thoroughly deserved the title as he too had a magical year, including two grand slam championships and two masters titles. 

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Rafa maintained his number one ranking until Rotterdam 2018, when Federer dethroned his worthiest rival to become the oldest number one-ranked player of all time, in doing so showing that old is gold.

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