Beaten in straight sets

Posted on February 1, 2008
Filed Under Sports |

I was waiting for my flight to Singapore in the airport when the news flashed out in the array of TV screens- “Federer crashes out. Djokovic advances in straight sets.” The screens being at a distance away from me, I was at first unsure whether I read it right. A couple of looks more at the flashing headline and I was shocked. To be frank, dejected too. “This can’t be happening,” I thought to myself. My so-far-calm psyche turned to one of anxiety as if the world was ready to undergo drastic changes from that moment onwards!

Having followed Roger Federer’s games and thoroughly appreciated his reign in the tennis kingdom, that was the only way I could take this piece of news. Chasing another coveted Grand Slam at the Australian Open in Melbourne, this was expected to be Federer’s next title in the path to a great record of Grand Slam Championships. More than Sampras’ skill n style of play, I thoroughly enjoy Federer’s and in my personal opinion, Fed-express was way ahead of Pete in terms of indestructibility.

Novac Djokovic, world number 3, reduced Federer’s reign to one that can be questioned and pondered upon, by defeating the champion in straight sets. The score was 7-5 6-3 7-6. It’s true that Federer had to play a hard 5 set match in an earlier round to win it, but I was confident that he would win the title as he was unstoppable and making history had become a habit for him.

While watching the finals I came across Djokovic’s scores through the tournament to reach the final and he had not lost one set yet. That’s when I realized how deserving he was for the win over the World number 1. The statistics showed he was in solid form throughout. But as a fan of Roger Federer, I am waiting for him to pounce back and amaze us again by setting new standards in tennis. It would be a treat to see him wiping out all existing records in the sport and setting new ones in the era of our existence!

All I could do right before boarding the flight was send an sms to my tennis partner - “hey.. djokovic beats federer.”

Comments

Leave a Reply