Gladiators of the highest quality

I used to think I could play tennis. Not all that well but well enough to wield a racket in club tournaments and even win the odd game here and there. I always knew I was never within a million miles of the guys at the top of the tree who played the game at a standard I could only dream of...but I did think I was vaguely playing the same game.

Over the years there have been some amazing tennis champions..and forgive me any women readers if I stick to the men here...players like Hoad, Rosewall, Laver, Sampras but I don't think I have ever before seen a Wimbledon final where BOTH players..Numbers 1 and 2 in the world..played tennis over five nail biting sets in which they took the game of tennis to new heights. It made me feel like never picking up a racket again.

Yesterday's Mens Singles Final between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal must surely go down in history as one of the most amazing feats of mutually sustained excellence that a tennis arena has ever been privileged to exhibit. The game was played at a speed which took the breath away and the excellence of shot often played at speed and at full stretch was simply amazing.



That the two respect each other greatly was evident in the warmth of feeling at the end of the match and, particularly, when Nadal, who must have been bitterly disappointed after playing well enough to beat any other player in the game EXCEPT Roger Federer, made no excuses and said he was delighted with his own game, he had played 'great' but that his opponent was the finest player on earth.

Federer now has eleven grand slam titles, he has equalled Bjorn Borg's five successive Wimbledon victories and he is now gunning for Pete Sampras' record 14 victories in grand slams. He could have been excused for being entirely self possessed after yesterday's victory but he said 'I was lucky today..it could have been either of us..but what about this guy? He is only 20 and I can only imagine how many titles he is going to win'

I know it's 'only a game' in the wider scheme of things but sometimes it lifts the human spirit to see two men who are at the very pinnacle of their sport, go head to head and produce a match of such amazing quality...and at the end of it pay tribute to each others talent. There is so much petulance, anger and downright churlishness in much of what passes as sporting behaviour that games such as this deserve all the accolades they receive.