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| Fedex falters | | UMPIRE`S POST |
| Suveen K Sinha / New Delhi Aug 10, 2008, 01:55 IST |
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Roger Federer will lose his number one ranking on August 18.
On Friday, August 8 — or 08.08.08 — the Olympic opening ceremony started in Beijing at 8:08:08 pm. It was also Roger Federer’s birthday. “Eight has always been my personal lucky number. And eight is considered one of the luckiest numbers in Chinese tradition because of its unique pronunciation,” wrote the birthday boy on his website.
It is sad to see supremely gifted persons like Federer take solace in happenstance. But these are tough times for Federer and his confidence might be wavering just a touch.
He is the world’s number one male tennis player for just seven more days. On August 18, regardless of what happens in the interim, Rafael Nadal will dethrone him in the new rankings to be released that day. Federer has held the spot for 237 consecutive weeks.
Strangely, the reaction to this change, which marks the change of an era, has been inexplicably muted. That can only mean that everyone saw it coming and was resigned to it.
In part, that is fine. Nadal has done enough this year to become number one. Still, this time last year that would have been unimaginable. Federer had won Wimbledon, showing Nadal his place in the final, and no one thought he won’t win the US Open. How did things change so fast?
It seems the pressure to win the French, and the repeated failure, and the fact that he lost to the same player, Nadal, year after year, got to Federer, who seemed unbreakable till last year.
Everyone said that one win, at the French, will ensure Federer’s place in history as the best of all time. Conversely, it meant that not winning the French will undermine him, even though he reached consecutive finals and was clearly the second best on clay and the best on every other surface.
So Federer oriented his tennis tour towards winning the French, just as Ivan Lendl had focused on Wimbledon, and perhaps in the process left his other fortresses somewhat unguarded. The result was that Nadal, who did guard duty at the French for two years, became the predator and nailed Federer in his own den, Wimbledon.
If you recall Federer’s face after losing the French this year and then Wimbledon, it was the face of a man drained and devastated. Since then he has lost to Gilles Simon and Ivo Karlovic, chaps he would have earlier beaten with one hand tied behind his back.
Actually Federer’s place in history will not be determined by whether he wins the French; it will depend on whether he can pick himself up and once again become the player he was, no more, on clay and elsewhere.
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