Roger Federer wins Rotterdam Open, officially climbs back to World No. 1
What's the story?
As the clock hands glided past Sunday midnight and stepped into a new Monday morning, the ATP Rankings refreshed itself and welcomed an all-familiar person to reclaim his position at the top perch of tennis.
After a long span of five years, where the top berth was up for a toss with several people getting to lay their hands on it temporarily, order seems to have been reestablished with Roger Federer going back where he belongs as the oldest World Number 1 in tennis history. The Swiss now has 10,105 rating points, 345 points ahead of second-placed Rafael Nadal.
Federer also went on to win the ABN AMRO Rotterdam Open, his 97th career title, making light work of former World No. 3 Grigor Dimitrov in the finals 6-2, 6-2, which was the icing on the top, to sign off a perfect week for him.
In case you didn't know...
The Swiss maestro has seemingly found a new hobby of creating records and breaking them himself. At 36, he is the oldest tennis player to become World Number one. To add laurels to his unending wreath, he is going to be the only player to spend his 303rd week as the numero uno of the game. Moreover, he already holds the singular record for spending a consecutive 237 weeks in that spot too.
The heart of the matter
Toppling Rafael Nadal from the top berth, Roger, 36, became the oldest person to become the World No. 1 breaking the record of a certain Andre Agassi who had succeeded in doing the same at the age of 33 back in 2003.
In 2017, when Roger was making his comeback known that to climb back to the lost throne he would have to win some 3 Grand Slams and several other titles in the span of barely over a year, he would have declared it as an incredulously impossible feat. But here we are, witnessing history unfold as with the quarter-final win against Robin Hasse in the ABN AMRO Rotterdam Open he regained the throne he had lost.
What's next?
With Federer back in his familiar territory, it is exciting times for tennis. During a time when people were wiping out thoughts of the Nadal-Federer rivalry getting reignited again, we seem to have been swept into the past. Nadal and Federer, both in their early and mid-30's respectively are still there to exchange the baton between themselves.
It looks like their rivalry has received a fresh new lease and it will be very interesting to see how Federer ups his game to defend the top berth from the prey of the ambitious, revengeful but slightly injured World No. 2 Rafael Nadal.
Author's take
By now it is no strange debatable fact to say that Roger Federer is the Greatest Player Of All Time ( GOAT). The Basel-born World No. 1 has proven to tennis pundits that they should rethink writing his obituary just about yet. Instead, he has brought back faith on himself and spread so much inspiration en route his climb to the summit.
While he is there in this circuit, perched on the top, relishing his stay for the 303rd week, we should not dare make the mistake of writing him off anytime soon because with Federer, just about anything is possible.