Never have I hated an athlete this much. Never has an athlete come in and after my childhood, take away all the records and numbers from my childhood heroes, and leave me with old memories of Jimmy Connors at the US Open, or Boris Becker hitting winners down the line. And the reason why this has all happened is a man named Roger Federer. The man with a personality worse than Pete Sampras, and a style of play duller than any champion. I admit, Federer may be the best player to ever live, better than Borg, better than McEnroe, Ashe, Agassi, or Sampras. But frankly, I still hate the guy.

Roger Federer just wrapped up his 4th Wimbledon championship in a row. Such a feat has never been accomplished before, and Federer is still young and has many more tournaments in him. But as his predecessors have learned, winning gets old for some and winning can sometimes lull top champions if they are not being pushed. Which is why it is imperative for both the sport, and for Federer’s motivation, that a rivalry comes along, and pushes Roger to be his very best.

Enter Rafael Nadal, the greatest player on clay that there is. Nadal burst on the scene out of nowhere a year ago, and since that time was 4-0 vs. Federer, which is an incredible record considering how rare it is that he ever even loses a match, yet along 4 to the same opponent. It was clear a rivalry of some kind had started, and the fact that Roger could not win on a clay surface against the Spaniard was getting to him.

Finally, Federer got a chance to play Nadal in the finals of Wimbledon after losing to him the major right before in the finals. Experts were hyping the rematch as a possible instant classic, and were tabbing Nadal as the number one player in the world if he wins the match. This bothered Roger to no end, and he was set to really show the world on the biggest stage there is in tennis exactly who is the best.

The match started with jitters by Nadal, when it should have been Federer who was the nervous one as he had all the pressure on his shoulders. Jitters turned into mistakes, and before you could blink, the first match was over, 6-0 Federer. The next two sets were played even, with each splitting a set, both on tiebreakers. Last, they went to the fourth set, where Federer’s brilliant ground strokes, and Nadal’s lack of patience in volleying finally finished the match, and gave Federer the result he was looking to show the world.

Not only is Roger Federer the best player in the world, the next best player is not even close to him. And therefore, tennis, especially on the men’s side, will suffer until someone can come up and challenge the champion into the type of rivalry that carried the sport during the 1980’s. A PimpWiz Exclusive By, Ryan Berger

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