Return of The King !

The greatest ever Grand Slam final ?

No it was never supposed to be ...
That was last year , when the challenger had finally come of age and had toppled the established order ... Today it was supposed to be the match that would establish ' The Return of the King'

Roger Federer in his quest for 'G.O.A.T' status was waiting to add that one more Grand Slam to make it 15 and go past Pete Sampras and Wimbledon Centre Court was the perfect place for the feat. It couldn't have been scripted better than this !

After his superb win in Rolland Garros , Wimbledon esp after Nadal withdrew was supposed to be a mere formality and entire media was only focusing on Roger. The result seemed to be a foregone conclusion for most people add to this a gallery of famous names in the Royal Box – Pete Sampras, Bjorn Borg, Rod Laver - the legends of the game - were watching, ready to grace the occasion when history was to be made ... You couldn't be faulted if you thought Roddick was there just to make up the numbers ...

But the final was something totally unexpected ... Andy Roddick came from no where with a vastly improved game and great hunger for the crown and almost pulled it off !

What a match ... When Federer came back from 2-6 in the 2nd set tiebreaker , saving 4 set points it looked like the momentum had swung especially when he took 3rd set. But Roddick wasn't quite done , he fought and fought really hard.

The fifth set was an amazing effort as the two players hung on and battled like Gladiators ( Russell Crowe who was part of the crowd would have agreed!) . I always thought tie-break for 5th set was not proper , but today after watching both these players giving their best ... struggling to stay afloat until mistake of one decided the winner , I think we are better off with tie-breakers , would save players from exhaustion and would be kinder to spectators with weak hearts !

Congrats again Roger ! its been such a treat to just watch him play , i think he totally deserves the World No:1 ranking and G.O.A.T status now , what a comeback for him after he was totally written off exactly an year ago by many after a defeat in a similarly grueling 5 set marathon . The icing on cake would be an US Open win by defeating Nadal in the final !!!

While i feel so great about Roger winning , feel sad for Roddick though especially after the way he played in this final , yet another Goran ?! Hope he is also able to script a fairly tale comeback