Federer captures French

In the small hours of today, Federer clinched the biggest prize.

Three years ago, on the morning of June 11 2006, I wrote: "It's 5:31 in the morning and I am sitting in front of the TV having just woken up after an extremely intermittent sleep waiting for the french open final between federer and nadal which is slated to begin in another 30 minutes..."

Three years hence, I got up again at 5:30, hoping to watch Federer achieve what he hasn't been able to for the last three years. All those red eyed, bad breathed, crumpled hair mornings; only to witness Federer getting bulldozed under the bludgeoning Nadal biceps. All that excitement and nervousness only to see him getting crushed over the crushed red brick. But he did it finally. He won the French Open and became the 6th person in history to win all 4 slams, tying in the process, Pete Sampras' record of the highest number of career slams. He didn't have Nadal on the other end but it doesn't matter. While it made things much easier for him, as they say in french - C'est la vie. The greatness of Federer lies as much in his sublime play as in his ability of not getting beaten by arbitrary players at arbitrary stages of a grand slam. To tie his claim to greatness to Nadal's consistency is just unfair. After all, saying that Nadal's presence in the final would have prevented him from winning the French open isn't too far from conjecturing that his absence would have meant Federer winning 3-4 additional French opens. So there we are. After 3 years of my intense support, Federer has finally delivered on what he seemed to promise every time. And I'm happy and relieved, and sleepy.

Good job Fed. To me, you were always the greatest player ever based on your sheer mindboggling abilities but the skeptics need facts and figures. Their mouths are dry and their throats parched until they are fed the global maximas of a statistical plot. Without the numerics of standard deviations and outlying means, your simple brilliance with the racquet was the sonorous sounds of a sonata in vacuum. You have finally infused it with a medium. And I know how much it meant to you. The meanings were dripping down your cheek, for the world to see. Congrats!