The pursuit of perfection!

The pursuit of perfection!

Its been a while since I've seen someone produce something so outrageous that you think its almost unfair for one human being to be so utterly dominant. Tiger when he won for the first time at Augusta, Tendulkar at Sharjah in 98, Sampras for a couple of sets in his 99 wimbledon final against Agassi, Lance when he won the tour in 2001, and Roger Federer everytime he steps on to a tennis court these days.

Federer, when he burst onto the scene at Wimbledon 2001, was a promising youngster. His exquisite all round game quickly came to the fore especially in 2002 and 2003. Tennis these days, even the men's game, is purely a baseline affair. The serve and volley game is now long gone with the likes of Goran, Henman and Phillipoussis having retired. Hence, we may never get to see the volleying skills of Federer in full flow ever again. His game has long surpassed any of his peers and for quite sometime now he has been chasing history. Whatever false hopes of victory that an opponent might carry quickly disappear after a couple of games against him. Given all this, you'd think that he wouldn't need to add to his game.

Yet, Federer has been steadily improving all this while. When you think of Federer, things that come to mind are his casual style, the forehand, the effortless ease of his game, the audacity of some of his shots, but today when I saw him play, the thing that stood out the most was his backhand. Even when I saw him play against Blake in Shanghai at the end of last year it was not this good. I have always believed that Justine Henin's backhand is the most gifted shot in all of tennis. I now think Roger Federer's backhand is the most potent. There is only so much you can do to a tennis ball. The topspin backhand is hit with more wrist whip and flick than anyone else i've ever seen. That shot looks so dismissive now as if he is telling the ball to go to hell and stay there. But the thing that kills you is that viscious sidespin that he is imparting to his slice. Its quite amazing, even on rebound ace, that the ball just spins so much and dies. I can only wonder what will happen on clay and grass. Earlier the opponent always had a glimmer of hope, thinking they could somehow outrally him on the backhand side but its tough to say which side is stronger now.

Its only a matter of time before he wins at Roland Garros. Last year he was pipped at the line. But with that new and improved backhand, 2007 will probably be the year. After that there wont be much left for him to achieve. But that does not deter a man like Roger Federer from the never ending pursuit of perfection!