Love all

I have always enjoyed sports.. for one the fervor and enthusiasm of cricket in India was so compulsive to be part of and secondly, for the spirit that brings us bonding together. This has been my primary reason for following ten years of cricket before I gave up around college time, for lack of that support and enthusiasm in my then friends. Then more than half-a-decade later, thanks to my dear hubby, I was introduced to American sports like baseball, football and basketball all of which are quite interesting. Of course topping the list would be THE football, followed closely by basket ball. So however silly it may seem, I think I have been driven more so by popularity than any individual preference.

Tennis always remained a second degree in my sports following, living through Steffi Graf, Agassi, Sampras, Henman (I actually used to follow him quite a bit once upon a time), and then unconquerable Federer (or atleast I liked to think so). But then as always, sports is such a leveler. Who would have thought the world number one Federer will fall in a period of one year from paramount Kingliness?! There was a time a couple of years back that the second ranked player was so back in line that Federer could lose like a million games in a row and still retain the first place for the next few months or so.

After an illness that cost the Australian Grand slam, he lost to Nadal in French (which is forgivable) and Wimbledon (which I still cannot believe). I started watching the Wimbledon final hoping to see a clean sweep after what happened in Rolland Garros to set the records straight, but Nadal was too good. What separates a genius from the greats is often a hairline space and it seemed so true. I remembered his words after the last Wimbledon finals (the five setter) that he wanted to gobble down (win) all he could before Nadal started winning. And it was the last time Federer could really reign over Nadal !

Even then, I was hoping to pay back Nadal at the US open which has never been his favorite. But the games leading up themselves proved too much heat that Fed-Express derailed. What has been his for five years in a row is not his anymore!?

No one in my time (not Agassi or Becker or Sampras) had held on to the spot for as long as Fed did… that we thought he would truly defy gravity and keep it eternally! But we were rocked to remind that nothing lasts forever.