5 qualities which made Roger Federer the greatest tennis player
Roger Federer is indisputably the greatest player of all time in men’s tennis. His record of winning 20 Grand Slams is unlikely to be ever broken. More importantly, most of the fellow greats of tennis have lauded him to be the greatest tennis player of all time.
Federer has won 8 Wimbledons, 6 Australian Opens, 5 US Opens and a solitary French Open title. He has won more Wimbledon titles than any other player in the history of tennis. Therefore, it is quite evident that grass is his most preferred playing surface.
Quite naturally, clay is Federer’s least favored surface and he has managed to win only one title at the Roland Garros. However, a tennis player's true quality is judged by his performances on hard courts and Federer has won 11 majors on them. This exceptional record is the surest proof of his greatness.
The 36-year-old Federer is into his 20th year in the tennis circuit and has won 97 singles titles overall. He has also won a whopping 82% of the matches he has played in his career. Those stats are mind-boggling, but one has to delve deeper into his game to understand what made him stand head and shoulders above his opponents.
We would take a look at the 5 qualities which made Federer the greatest player of all time:
#1 No major weakness
Federer has no major weakness in his game. There is almost nothing that he cannot do on a tennis court. Almost all other tennis greats have their share of weaknesses. For example, Rafael Nadal is not very comfortable going to the net, Novak Djokovic does not have very good drop shots, and Pete Sampras could not control the game from the baseline. However, Federer is comfortable doing all the above things and more.
Federer has won almost 89% of the service games in his career which is only a tad behind Ivo Karlovic's all-time record of 92%, whereas, his record of winning almost 27% of his return games is not far behind Guillermo Coria's all-time record of 35%. Those figures show the completeness of Federer's game.
Moreover, Federer has won more than 75% of the matches he has played on clay, his least favorite surface. He has also won 83% of his matches played on hard courts and 87% of the ones played on grass. No other tennis player can boast of such consistency across different surfaces. Federer could achieve this consistency because his game is devoid of any major weakness.
The only apparent drawback in his game is the absence of a double-handed backhand but Federer makes up for it with an amazing single-handed one. Therefore, his opponents fail to find any shortcoming in his game.