Roger Federer defeated Andy Murray in straight sets in today’s delayed final, 6-2 7-5 6-2, and took less than two hours to do it. The same Federer that many commentators dismissed as a contender for the title… despite his having not lost there in years. Yes, he had a bad early hardcourt season, but the only person you could really think would beat him at it would be Nadal, and even Nadal would have had tremendous difficulty doing so in New York. I don’t see why so many pundits were eager to state that he was in rapid decline, and now he’s made them look pretty bad.
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Roger Federer is no longer the world number one. Rafael Nadal took the number one ranking today after being in the number two spot for longer than anyone else in history. Nadal’s ascension was guaranteed at least two weeks ago, thanks to poor recent results from Federer, some quirks in the ranking system, and Nadal’s continued fantastic form.

Federer was the world number one for longer, consecutively, than anyone before him: 237 weeks, from 2 Feb 2004 until 17 Aug 2008. The previous men’s record was 160 (Jimmy Connors), more than a year shorter than Federer. Steffi Graf had a record of 186 consecutive weeks at number one, just under a year shorter than Federer.
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Well, it seems I was wrong about Federer recovering from his Wimbledon loss and tenaciously defending his #1 ranking—he lost in the first round of the Rogers Cup last night to Gilles Simon.
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Given the results of the Wimbledon final and the Roland Garros final, it’s hard to argue that Nadal isn’t the best tennis player in the world at the moment. However, he’s not ranked as the number one player in the world—that’s still Federer.
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I wouldn’t have put a question mark at the end of the title if Roger Federer had won, had completed his comeback from two sets to love down.
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One of the things that makes tennis such a great game is its scoring system, which can be considered apart from the rest of the rules of the game, concerned as they are with valid ways of scoring points and procedural issues.
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Imagine that you are the best tennis player of your time, perhaps the best tennis player of all time. You’ve been number one in the world for an unprecedented 228 consecutive weeks. You’ve reached the semifinals or better of the last sixteen Grand Slams. You’ve won three slams in a year three times, two of those in consecutive years, and in those consecutive years you were in all eight Grand Slam finals. Unlike other historic greats with prodigious talent and great success on grass, you’re excellent on clay and have been improving on that surface. Only one Slam trophy is missing from your cabinet: the French. As possibly the greatest player of all time, what could stop you from winning it?
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In fact, he didn’t even make it to the final, breaking his streak of ten straight Grand Slam finals. Sunday’s champion will be the first man not named Nadal or Federer to win a Grand Slam since the 2005 Australian Open.
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As expected, Roger Federer today won his fourth US Open title in a row, his twelfth Grand Slam title, his eleventh Grand Slam title in four years. He won in straight sets (7-6 (4), 7-6 (2), 6-4), and yet the victory seemed somehow quite unimpressive. Federer seemed off his game for large stretches of the match.
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I haven’t been watching the US Open live, but I’ve been catching highlights online. And once again, it’s the Roger Federer show. I’ll be pretty stunned if he doesn’t win it. If you think someone else will win, go put money on them, I’m sure you can get good odds… Andy Roddick played what was apparently some of his best tennis against Federer on Wednesday night, and still lost—in straight sets.
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I found both the French Open finals this year somewhat disappointing. Henin’s win was clearly deserved, but Ivanovic could definitely have played better. As for the highly-anticipated Federer-Nadal final, I thought it was quite a letdown.
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The French Open is my favorite tennis tournament, and possibly my favorite sporting event. I’ve always loved clay court tennis, and it’s the premier clay court event. It doesn’t get as much attention as Wimbledon, which is more or less its opposite—grass and clay are at the extremes in terms of tennis surfaces, with the various types of hard court (and possibly carpet) in the middle.
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