#9: King Federer
If you have read my past blog entries, you will know that I am a big fan of Roger Federer. For me, he is a great ambassador of tennis simply because of his grace and temperament on the court. 7.5 years ago in a hotel room in Vietnam, I saw him played a few matches in the build up to the finals when he played Nadal but lost. However, the love for the sport and his determination to succeed truly earned my respect and since then, I have been a faithful follower and decided to pick up the sport. The French Open eluded him for many years despite his success in all other Grand Slam tournaments. At 33 years of age, he is still making to Grand Slam Finals and Semi-Finals and this shows how technically adept he is that he can make up for his fitness through his talent and technical abilities.
Some of my friends think that he is aloof because he has no emotions during matches but I feel that all individual sports require the players themselves to maintain calmness in their hearts. You might be one match point away and you are feeling a lot of adrenaline rush and anxiety. What are you gonna say when you win the trophy? Have you finally done your team proud? What next for you? Many questions start to float in your head and it is important that you stay composed and hit a good ball to win the game. So RF is that kind of a player.
RF is definitely at the end of the peak of his career. No one knows when he will retire but it is not far away. Thus, I have always wanted to watch him play live and hear the crowd roar behind him before he retires. So I went to the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals and caught the game between Wawrinka and him. Though it was indoor tennis, the determination and brilliance of both players definitely made the ticket worth its value. RF may have lost the precision that he has in his younger days, his feet are not as quick and agile compared to when I saw him on TV in the past and he has to use a bigger racquet these days to sustain his level of play. However, he still has the crowd behind him and edging him on against his opponents. He is still the inspiring tennis player that I saw on TV 7.5 years ago. So I am really glad that I managed to catch him live in action. ü See RF live in action.
Credits to Wawrinka, he definitely played well and even had a match point against RF but the crowd was hardly on his end. Hopefully he will have a better season in 2015.
No comments:
Post a Comment