Federer = Sampras + 1 ??

This is the question that is on everyone’s mind, at least the people who follow tennis have been consumed by this question for some time now. And it is that time of the year when the red dust gets replaced by the gorgeous looking grass and the French wine with the mouth-watering combination of strawberries and cream. It is the abode where King Federer dwells and with his nemesis gone, read Nadal, owing to a dodgy-knee, only the Spiderman Movies-loving clan can hope for a miracle. Yet this is the beauty of sport. Just when you expect the script to be predictable, something turns up totally unexpected and mind-boggling. So who are the people who can upset Federer’s applecart and claim a slice of history of their own.

As I write this piece, I have just learnt that Novak Djokovic, the genius mimic expert has been dumped out of Wimbledon by the resurgent Tommy Haas. With this, my options get further trimmed down to something manageable. For starters I have a hunch that this would be Britain’s year, meaning Andy Murray’s year. England has been starved of any sort of success in their home slam, with the media resigning themselves to the fact that Tim Henman would never win Wimbledon and eventually he proved them correct. But this fellow, a Scot, is a little different from his predecessors. He is dogged, has an all court game and more importantly, has had Federer’s number on more than one occasion. And the way he has been playing so far has done little to douse the mountain of expectations riding on him.

Then you have Tommy Haas, who has a back-hand which is as good as Federer’s if not better than Federer’s. He has been on a super run and might have enough motivation and gas left in his tank to diffuse Federer’s flair when he faces him in the semi-finals. Then you have Andy Roddick, the perennial Wimbledon faithful, who does everything right, but somehow chokes right on the threshold of Wimbledon acquisition. He faces a tough and a pumped-up-again Lleyton Hewitt in the quarter finals. Their styles are as different as chalk and cheese, with Roddick relying more on his booming server and fore-hand while Hewitt is the counter-puncher of Agassi mould, just that he is even quicker on court. Whoever wins this titanic struggle might have the fire in their belly to reach the very end, the finish line, where the announcer proudly shouts, “Game, Set, Match and Championship…”

Now shifting focus to the another man who can ruin Federer’s party and that is Federer himself. How would he be feeling, standing on the cusp of a feat so monumental, that might just end the debate of the greatest player of all time, once and for all. He has shown no signs of nerves so far and has continued from where he left at Roland Garros. The demolition of Robin Soderling and the ace-machine Ivo Karlovic shows that he is focused and determined to usurp the tournament he loves the most back from Nadal. If he does manage to win it, it will be a fitting end to a glorious pursuit which started here at this hallowed land itself. A lot of anti-Federer supporters(including me) would cry their throats dry, suggesting the fact that Nadal wasn’t there, but then he also wasn’t there when Federer had shot out Pistol Pete in an innocuous looking 4rth round clash, which started all this in the first place and created an enigma now called “King Federer”.