If lingering doubts as to who the greatest tennis male player ever still existed before this year’s Wimbledon, Roger Federer vanquished them all by pocketing his 8th Wimbledon title, his 19th overall career Grand Slam, last July 16 at the All-England Club in London, England.
The King of the Grass showed this is his favorite playing surface as his eighth Wimbledon at the expense of Croatian Marin Cilic, 6-3, 6-1, 6-4, in the final becomes the most Grand Slam titles won by any man on grass, breaking a tie with Pete Sampras and William Renshaw, who got his titles during the amateur era. Rafael Nadal holds the most Grand Slam titles in a tournament with his 10 French Opens.
See story: The Legend of King of Clay continues to grow
The 35-year old Swiss cruised through the entire tournament without dropping a single set, the second time Federer did it during his playing career. The first one happened during the 2007 Australian Open.
Only four other men achieved this feat in the open era. Nadal and Bjorn Borg did it three times each. Borg was the only other guy to attain this feat in Wimbledon.
His 19 Grand Slam titles also reestablished the record of most titles in history for a male tennis player. He is now four Grand Slams clear of the runner-up Nadal, who has 15.
While still performing a very respectable level, Federer was thought to be a goner at getting Grand slam titles, much less in multiple instances in one year, at the start of the year, mainly because of his advancing age.
His last title came before this year came at the 2012 Wimbledon, although he still showed he was still a force to reckon with in grass by finishing runner up during the 2014 and 2015 Wimbledon, and on the hard courts by finishing runner-up in the 2015 US Open.
Federer, however, came in the year with serious intentions to prove his doubters wrong. He delayed father time and bucked the odds to reach the semis of the 2017 Australian Open to become the oldest man to compete in a grand slam semifinal since Jimmy Connors in 1991.
He proceeded to stop Stan Wawrinka in five sets to become the oldest player to compete in a Grand Slam final since Ken Rosewall in 1974.
He met familiar nemesis Nadal in the final and came back from a break down in the fifth set to win his fifth Australian Open title, 6-4, 3-6, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3.
This was Federer’s first victory against Nadal in a Grand Slam event since the 2007 Wimbledon final and his first ever Grand Slam victory over Nadal outside of Wimbledon.
He became the oldest player at 35 years 174 days to win a major since Rosewall, when he won the 1972 Australian Open 62 days past his 37th birthday.
Federer then showed another aspect of his greatness when he decided to skip the entire 2017 clay-court season due to concerns about his longevity, according to him, but probably more of his inability to fare well in this surface.
His decision bore fruit as he became the oldest man, at 35 years 342 days, to win Wimbledon in the Open era.
Federer joined Roswell as the only men past 35 to win multiple grand slam titles. Roswell earlier won the 1971 Australian Open when he was 36 years and 73 days old.
Federer’s win also snapped a five-year Wimby drought, the second longest gap between two men’s Wimbledon singles titles in the Open Era behind Jimmy Connors who followed his 1974 win with a 1982 victory.
Aside from his eight Wimbledons and five Australian Opens, he also has five US Open titles and a French Open. He is 19-10 in the Grand Slam finals.
The only reason why some few still have a hard time putting him on top of everyone else is Federer’s 36-46 career record against the other components of the big three, Nadal and Novak Djokovic.
He is a poor 14-23 against Nadal, the man second to him in total grand slams. Djokovic holds the edge in their head-to-head matchup, 23-22.
This could be the only argument against his Greatest Of All-Time claim.
By: ARMANDO M. BOLISLIS