The evergreen Roger Federer continued to defy age as he scripted his name into the record books after he clinched his eighth Wimbledon title beating Croatian Marin Cilic 6-3, 6-1, 6-4.
The match took an hour and 41 minutes to end as Federer went on to claim his first Wimbledon title since 2012. The Swiss Superman now holds a record of winning a record of eight Wimbledon titles and 19 Grand Slams and well and truly is one of the living legends of the game today.
Arguably, he is the greatest ever tennis star to have played the game and this time, we will leave it to the statistics to speak for the legendary Swissman.
Becoming a professional player at the age of 17 in the year 1998, he regularly made it to the top 10 from October 2002 to November 2016. He also holds the record for holding the no 1 position in the ATP rankings for a total of 302 weeks. He has had a total of 92 career titles which is third highest after in the open era after Ivan Lendl’s 94 and Jimmy Connor’s 104.
The oldest to win the Wimbledon in the open era at 35, Federer won the grand tournament dropping zero sets- which clubs him German Björn Borg as the only players to have won the tournament without dropping a single set. Borg had achieved this unique feat.
By winning his eighth Wimbledon title, he went past greats like William Renshaw and Pete Sampras, both of whom had have seven Wimbledon championships to their name.
He isn’t only successful but also consistent. He has made it to a finals of a Grand Slam for 23 times between 2004 and 2009, which is a record. Speaking of Wimbledon, he has made it to the finals for eleven times and has emerged victorious on eight occasions. The list is endless and going by the rampaging form he is in even at 35, many more inclusions are bound to happen in it.
Well not only is he a tennis great, but a perfect sportsperson in all senses of the term. If we compare tennis with some major sports like cricket, football or even basketball, then perhaps the idea of Federer as a legend would intensify even more.
In the above-mentioned sporting disciplines, all of them are team games. If a cricketer or a footballer has a bad day, well his teammates can surely make up for that. But that’s not the case with tennis. Here, it is the player himself who has to give in his best every set and win a game all on his own and Federer has been doing the same for a good number of years now. Legendary stuff.
Don Bradman’s iconic average of 99.94 and Sachin Tendulkar’s 100 international centuries in cricket, Joseph Bican’s unique record of 1468 goals in 918 matches in football, Usain Bolt’s lightning fast run of 100 metres in just 9.58 seconds and Roger Federer’s record 19th Grand Slam and eighth Wimbledon title-some records stay alive in the minds of the people for a lifetime.
On this historic achievement, we from SportsCrunch want to congratulate the Swiss superman for this incredible feat as he has been doing of late. For him, age is just a number and at a time when the next generation players should make their mark and stamp their authority, the legend continues to show as to why, ‘old is gold.’
Take a bow, Roger!