It was inspiring to watch Roger Federer win the French Open for the first time this morning. He’s been in the finals the last four years in a row but has never won this event until today. The Swiss-born Federer has now tied Pete Sampras’ top record of 14 Grand Slam wins. His tenacity and personal motivation to pick himself up after each defeat and continue the pursuit of his goal make him a great role model.
Any thoughts on this cool and cloudy Sunday?
It’s crazy that Federer is only going on 28 years of age and he should be in his prime.Sampras was 31
when he broke the Aussie Roy Emersons
career wins record.To be fair though,
Federer had less competition today,
than Sampras had IMO.Sampras had to play:Courier,Agassi,Edberg,Rafter,
Becker etc.Who does Federer have to play? Only Nadal has his number and has beaten him four times in Paris at the French Open.
Sure, Federer owns alot of tennis records,but there are records he’ll never own.Only Rod Laver won 2 Grand Slams in the same calender year.Bjorn
Borg besides winning 5 straight Wimbledons,won 6 French Open titles.
Connors won 5 US Open titles on 3 different surfaces.Had Borg not retired at 25 years old, who knows how many grand slam titles he could have won?Yet, he won 11 slams by the age of 24.I was a big Borg fan.
Comment by kageman — June 7, 2009 @ 6:14 pm
Kage, it’s nice to have a tennis aficionado around! What a great sport. All our kids played varsity tennis at Lake City–we made many trips down to Boise for State Tennis at the Boise Racket Club, which was a great experience. There’s something so amazing about the power and talent needed to play tennis well, even doubles, which I love. We got to see Agassi play an exhibition match, up close, and wow, what a powerhouse he was/is!
Tennis is such a mind game. Look at Federer this morning—he was having trouble closing out the championship, even though he’s a successful winner…he had never been able to win at Roland Garros before.
Comment by mary — June 7, 2009 @ 7:22 pm