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Another Sunday evening, another Championships final at SW19. Yet another piece of tennis history waited for its turn to be rewritten, and once again Roger Federer was the focus.
Tears followed wizardry as Roger Federer managed to etch his name in the wall of champions yet again in his 102nd match at Wimbledon. He registered his 91st win, the most by any tennis player in the Open Era.
But Federer’s 19th major and eighth Wimbledon was a fitting ode to his genius, and is one that transcends bare statistics.
Roll back the time machine to 2003. Federer’s stint with history books began at this court when he defeated an Australian named Mark Philippoussis in three sets. Tennis, then, was all about Marat Safin, Andy Roddick, Lleyton Hewitt and Andre Agassi.
No one could portend that the tennis era would be witness to a brutal, decade long dominance by Federer’s rivalry with Rafael Nadal until the arrival of Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray. That group came to be known as Big Four of the tennis world.
Yet at this year’s Wimbledon we had someone named Marin Cilic, counted as a next generation star armed with a power-packed serve and forehand, standing between the maestro and the history books.
Despite Cilic playing his best at Wimbledon this year, his blistered foot coupled with some tough matches in the quarters and semis made this final appear one of the most one-sided fights. But given the way Federer had reached the finals without dropping a set, it remained to be seen how tight the contest would have been had Cilic been physically fit.
Records are meant to be broken, but the renaissance that has been on display since the beginning of 2017, by the oldest man in the Open Era to win the Wimbledon (35 years, 11 months), eclipses the numbers as well as the fallacies of age.
Cheers from the stars, incessant prayers from fans who never lose faith in the magic that the racket of Federer can create, the devotion with which tennis aficionados flock to witness a performance that embodies grace, fluidity and art are some of the intangible facets that history books cannot record.
Is he the ‘Greatest of All Time’? Does he represent what the mortals refer to as immortality? Where does he go from here? How many Grand Slam major victories can he clock before he finally hangs up his boots?
New York will be abound with excitement when he steps into Flushing Meadows next month. The rankings might have a different story to tell, but Federer and his aura has certainly ruled the charts as well as our hearts.
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