Does the Davis Cup win make Roger Federer the greatest?
When Federer beat Richard Gasquet in France on Sunday, history was written. The Davis Cup title was the only trophy that was missing from the Swiss ace's trophy cabinet. With this win, he has clinched the first Davis cup for Switzerland in history. We have seen him playing the finest tennis in the last couple of months and undoubtedly, the end of 2014 with a Davis Cup win has made it even more special for him. With this victory, he has won all the major titles that tennis has to offer.
The Davis cup win, on clay in France, makes his triumph all the more exciting and supports the argument of him being the greatest player in the history of tennis so far. He has been an Olympic champion, where he won the doubles with Stan Wawrinka in 2008 in Beijing Olympics. Also, a couple of years ago, he was close to winning the Olympics singles gold in All England but Andy Murray stole that title from him.
However, the Davis Cup trophy was one thing that he might have wanted to clinch for a long time now. Until the time he won the title, he was one of seven men who have all the Grand Slams but not the Davis cup and the list includes Australians Rod Laver and Roy Emerson, Briton Fred Perry, Spaniard Rafael Nadal and Americans Andre Agassi and Don Budge.
Why is Federer the greatest tennis player of all time
Grand Slam titles - Federer clearly leads that tally with 17 major titles in his kitty.
Others would even say that we should broadly look at their tennis career. With winning the most number of titles this year, he clearly leads that tally too. Also, he is the only player who has been on the world number 1 ranking for 302 weeks of which there was a 237-week span when he held the top spot consecutively. He also has the most number of titles at the Australian Open (4), Wimbledon (7) and the US Open (5).
He has also appeared in 25 men’s singles final in which he made 10 consecutive appearances. He has made the most number (25) of semi-final appearances at Grand Slams. He has also won 6 ATP World Tour Finals and has won the most amount of prize money than any other player in history, which is close to $80,000,000. In fact, he is also one of the highest paid athletes in the world.
Although, his compatriots Nadal and Novak Djokovic are not too far behind, this Davis cup win has again instigated the 'who is the greatest of them all' debate, and with Federer leading nearly every list, there will be little doubt in the answer even amongst his haters.
However, there is one thing his fans are still waiting for him to do....to win that Olympics gold in Rio in 2016. Winning an Olympics Gold at 35 would be something extremely immaculate to witness! Till then, let us just wait and pray for the Swiss Master!