Tennis: the two best players of all time
It wasn’t meant to be Roger Federer, said Martin Samuel in the Daily Mail. Not at the age of 35; not after a six-month layoff while he recovered from knee surgery; not in this “golden age for men’s tennis”. But on Sunday, the Swiss player confounded the doubters to beat Rafael Nadal and win the Australian Open. It was his 18th Grand Slam, four more than any other male player. Federer’s claim to greatness has “never been in question”, said Kevin Mitchell in The Guardian. But this victory confirmed that he is “peerless in the history of his sport”. Even now, he is playing remarkable tennis: “only the freakishly powerful Ivo Karlovic hit more than Federer’s 108 aces” in Melbourne; and “only Kei Nishikori bettered his 21 winning returns off serve”.
It goes without saying that Federer is a player of “great beauty”, who turns tennis into “something resembling advanced choreography”, said Matthew Syed in The Times. Less appreciated, however, are his extraordinary “resolve and self-belief”. Since 2012, the year of his last Grand Slam win, he had been urged to “hang up his racket”. Yet he kept going, because he believed he could “triumph once again”. He tried everything, adjusting his technique, “with all the accompanying rigmarole and agitation, in the noble cause of finding a fresh edge”. On Sunday, Federer finally prevailed – joining the likes of Jack Nicklaus, who won the Masters at 46, and Bernard Hopkins, who unified boxing’s middleweight titles at 39.
Serena Williams has earned her own place in that lineup, said Bryan Armen Graham in The Guardian. Just one month younger than Federer, she beat her sister, Venus, last Saturday to win her 23rd singles Grand Slam – finally overtaking Steffi Graf’s record for the most majors in the professional era. Like Federer, she is now undoubtedly “the best there has ever been”. Venus, a year older, made it to the final as the oldest player in the top 300; she defeated opponents barely half her age, despite battling the autoimmune disease that has “hamstrung” her game for years. But, as in so many previous matches between the sisters, she was no match for Serena. Nor is anyone else, said Oliver Brown in The Sunday Telegraph. “Where, exactly, is the competition?” Maria Sharapova is serving a 15-month doping ban; Angelique Kerber, who briefly “usurped” Serena as World No. 1, failed to win a single tour event during her 20 weeks at the top. Serena is “so far out on her own” that her rivals “should feel ashamed”.