Roger Federer - Tennis Legend

Just when critics were beginning to write him off, the mercurial Roger Federer bounced back to win the French Open Tennis Championships for the first time and in the process equalled the record of 14 Grand Slam victories, held by Pete Sampras.
It is an astonishing record and places Federer arguably as the greatest player the game has ever seen with only one man currently playing that could overhaul him, that of course is Rafael Nadal, who is the only man ever to beat Federer in a Grand Slam final. The fact that he has done so five times does take some of the gloss off Federer's achievement, but nonetheless, Federer now holds two of the four Grand Slams while Nadal holds the others.

To date, Federer has won five Wimbledon's, equalling Bjorn Borg's record of five consecutive wins, five US Opens, Three Australian Opens and now his maiden French title. The question is how many more can he win?

In truth Federer has not played to his best for the past 18 months, he has lost many matches and last year had it not been for his victory in the US Open he would have finished the year with only two minor titles. He relinquished his Wimbledon crown to Nadal and was humiliated by the same player in the 2008 French Open Final, winning only four games.
This year however, he performed well in the Australian Open losing to Nadal in a five set thriller but beat Nadal when winning the Madrid Masters on clay against Nadal in the tournament before winning this.

Federer now turns his attention to Wimbledon, his favourite tournament and there is no doubt that he will be looking to regain the crown he lost to Nadal in that most memorable of five set matches last year. He will go into that tournament as favourite and if he can win he will need only one more to equal the record of seven victories held once again by Sampras. A win of course will also see him regaining the World number one spot also lost to Nadal in 2008.

Federer is only 27 years old yet he seems to have been around forever, it is amazing that he can play to such a level over such along time. He has been in the final of sixteen of the last eighteen Grand Slams, only missing out at the Australian in 2008 and 2005. Who would dare back against him getting to the final again at Wimbledon based on that record.

The great news for tennis fans of course is the rivalry between Federer and Nadal will continue. They are easily the best two players in the world and Nadal is only one of two players who can better Federer on their head to head matches. Nadal leads emphatically in fact by 13-7, but most of those have been on Nadal's favoured surface of clay. The other player who van better Federer in their head to heads is Britain's Andy Murray who leads Federer by 6-2. Significantly however one of Murray's losses to Federer was in the final of the 2008 US Open.