Leveling ground

Seldom does a statesman's death invoke the sports page in a newspaper. Then again, Nelson Mandela wasn't your everyday leader. He realized the importance of sport quite early and made sure it executed a significant role in the shaping of his country. Interestingly, a century before Madiba did so, Swami Vivekananda went on record saying that he'd recommend football for those who are too lazy to read Bhagavad-Gita. His axiom was refreshingly elementary: you draw similar lessons in life from both of them. The stakes may not be even given the past circumstances but once you reach the hallowed ground of competition, all the members are equal. It doesn't matter who your father is or whether you're rich or poor. Your background is left behind. The only thing worth contemplating is victory and if possible, fairness. The sun will be equally harsh on all the players on the ground. The breeze will play its part accordingly. It's the closest one can get to creating a leveling ground. And we all know how practitioners of politics make sure that such a ground remains a myth.

Oz Open & Close!

With today’s match between Roger Federer and Andy Murray, Australian Open came to an illustrious end. Federer won this match in straight sets and took his Grand Slam titles to inimitable 16. Andy Murray loss surely paints on an empty canvas of how the future tennis will be and that he will be a dominant force in it. He tried his best today to topple the Emperor of Tennis and break British Grand Slam jinx but he cried. The cry was nothing compared to Roger’s when he yelped, “God, this is killing me!” last year at this very tournament after losing to Nadal in a 5-set epic battle. But still even a hardcore Federerphile like me can feel Murray’s agony when he moved his lower lip and tried to fight back tears on the podium.
Other than Federer, a lot of exciting things emerged from the first Grand Slam of calendar year and one of them was the Phoenix return of Justine Henin to the ladies final and eventually losing to Serena Williams in 3-sets. Though she showed mettle in the 2nd set but somewhat gave up the steam in the final decider. I wanted her to win like her fellow Belgian, Kim Cljisters did in US Open two months back! This was Serena’s 5th Grand Slam Down Under and 12th overall.

Australian Open is called “the Grand Slam of Asia-Pacific” and this year it had a lot of Asian to go with the caption. For the first time ever, two Chinese women entered the semifinals of a Grand Slam tournament. Zheng Jie and Li Na managed to fight their way into the second last stage of grabbing the title. Li Na was very close to reaching the final but was defeated 6-7, 6-7 by ever-resilient Serena Williams.

In the doubles, Bryan Brothers were dominant and ousted Daniel Nestor of Canada and Serbian Nenad Zimonjic to win their 8th Grand Slam finals. As for the women', the Williams Sister were fluent to win their 4th Oz Open and 11th GS titles overall.

And for us Indians, Leander Paes made sure the tricolor flew high when he clinched the Mixed Doubles with his consistent parter, Cara Black of United States. This is Paes’s 11 GS title, tying Bhupathi’s record of 11 GS titles, most by any Indian ever.

This year also saw a record attendance at the event. About 653,860 tennis lovers attended and that figure is more than the last record by about 50,000!!!! No wonder this Grand Slam rocked! I just hope all the coming tennis events, in ATP as well as WTA, keep up the tempo and make sure they get the best of talents on circuit and keep tennis high!

Federer & Roddick story at SW19

So it was done just like I thought except a bit of improvisation in the final moments. I was wishing that Murray will face the riposte from Feddie boy but coincidentally it was Andy Roddick who went through the drill.

Federer and Roddick have a history of their own and it goes back to their junior days as well but as far as the professional men's tennis is concerned, Federer clearly thumped out better and stronger among the two with 18 victory out of 20 matches with the "King of Tennis". So in a nutshell, it would have been an one-sided affair. But it wasn't meant to be an one-sided story. And it wasn't.

Roddick came to Center Court focused like never before as he knew exactly what it means to be facing Federer on the other side of the net and he remembers how he was reined like a mule by Roger in the US Open in 2006 in front of his cheering crowd. The game plan was to attack Federer with piercing serve and approaching net as many times as possible and this stratagem clearly paid off in the first set itself. He won the first set of the duel with a breakpoint at the very end. So the score now was at 1-0 in Rod's favor.

The second set too was all about holding service and attacking with everything possible and trying to keep the set elongated and durable. But the balance was again tilting in Roddick's favor with the second set reaching a tie break where Roddick again held his serve and posted a 6-2 lead, needing just one point to wrap up the second set. But here's where Federer proved why he is what he is considered and called. He changed the complete face of the tie break and stalled Roddick (who committed some uncharacteristic unforced errors too) at 6 and moved from 2 to 8 thus winning the second set 7-6 (8-6).

Third set again was all too similar to 2nd set and approached tie breaker where Federer showed his upper hand and won the set 7-6 (7-5). By this time, most of the punters must have assumed that Federer will chalk out the match within four set and kiss the golden trophy.

However, Fourth set saw the resurgence of A-Rod and broke Federer's service twice to grab the set 6-3. Mind you, till now Federer failed to gain even a break point in spite of having several feasible chances, which meant Roddick has managed to remain unbroken against Federer for four consecutive sets which became a Grand Slam record in itself for him against Roger in 8 meetings.

So the match is tied at 2-sets each and fifth set was the decider and no one would have guessed that this set would be the longest 5th-setter ever in Wimbledon history lasting 95 minutes and 30 games. Last year, it was an epic battle between Federer and Nadal. This year, it was an epic 5th-setter and it did amazed everyone from retired "legends" sitting in front row to Rog & Rod's family and team to boisterous crowd to millions glued to TV.

Now the game is overwhelming at 14-15 in Roger's favor and Rod is trying to avoid break point and stay alive in the match. Roger Federer who didn't break Roddick's serve even once till now does so when its needed the most and exalts a huge yelp of relief and creates history in the meantime with all the dignitaries including Pete Sampras, Bjorn Borg and Rod Laver delivering a standing ovation to the true "King of Sward". Roddick looked heartbroken but that didn't downed his sense of humor when he pointed to Sampras and said, "Sorry, Pete. I tried to hold him off."