I have had this one brewing in my tennis head for the past fortnight. It angered me at first and still has been ragging away waiting to get out!
It was a discussion on Men’s semi final day at Wimbledon and Michael Stitch and Big Greg were chatting and our favourite Canadian Greg Rusedski came out with the line, ‘oh yeh Roger Federer the man who was the best player in the world but now he is well down the pecking order!’ Stich quite rightly replied sure hes only lost one match and you are writing him off already but Greg kept insisting that Roger was on a downward spiral and would not win a Grandslam again.
Roger is a fantastic player, he is without doubt the best ever, we are also a generation blessed with one other great player in Rafael Nadal. Roger dominated for so many years, and now as expected is losing his grip somewhat on the number one crown and his semi final records. But so far this year Roger has won in Australia and was beaten quarter finalist in Paris and London, by every other top player that is a fantastic record and achievement. Roger is ofcourse a victim of his own success and is being judged by the meteoric standards he has set in his career. If he doesnt win 2 slams a year and make the semis in the other it is a failure.
Federer fans must now set more realistic targets and expectations for Roger. Sure Roger is motivated to win but does he now have the hunger and desire he would have had when he was new to the tour, after all he has two kids to keep him busy amongst his other charitable commitments and things that come with being one of the greatest living sportsmen ever. Nadal is also in awesome form, truly fantastic and could dominate until the rest of the tour find out how to beat him. We now have more players than ever in a position to win grandslams, Berdych is coming through, Soderling has been close a few times, Murray, Delpo, Nole and Davydenko could all be considered real contenders. But is Roger dead? Get a grip!
Greg has maybe been spending too much time reading the Daily Sport in that high powered job he has in the LTA and is far too quick to call to an end the career of the greatest player ever to grace a tennis court. Roger will continue and will win again that is for sure. It is unlikely that the dominance that we have seen will be replicated but Federer always has a new trick up his sleeve
