Tennis

The Best Player... Ever

Fans of professional tennis have witnessed many exciting events this summer. The greatest of all was when Roger Federer broke the record for Grand Slam wins in July. After defeating Andy Roddick in the finals of Wimbledon, Federer earned his 15th Grand Slam title. The previous record was set by Pete Sampras in 2002.

Federer has dominated the professional tour over the past few years, but earning his 15th title was no easy chore. It was a dramatic match, the longest and arguably the greatest in Wimbledon history. Federer came into the match as a heavy favorite, but Roddick shocked the crowd by winning the first set 7-5. Federer barely won the next two sets, both in tiebreaks. When it looked as if Federer had control of the match, Roddick came out strong in the fourth set and posted a 6-3 win. Since the the format for the the tournament was the best three out of five sets, they would have to play out a fifth set to decide the winner. The unique thing about a fifth set at Wimbledon is that there are no tiebreakers in the fifth set. Someone must win the set by two. This rule would play a huge factor in the fifth set, as it lasted a long time, longer than in any other match in Wimbledon history. The fifth set was a battle, testing each man both physically and mentally. Anytime a fifth set comes into play, both competitors are usually very tired. Therefore, physical fitness plays a big role in who wins the match. Since Federer and Roddick are both in great shape, the fifth set went on forever. The fifth set lasted 95 minutes, the longest of any set ever played. At the end of the set, Federer was the champion, finally winning at a score of 16-14.

With the win at Wimbledon, Federer moved into first place for all time Grand Slam wins. A record like this gives him a strong argument to claim himself as the best player ever. And while Federer would never acknowledge this, many other players and fans would. Some of the greatest players in the history of the game were in the crowd at the finals of Wimbledon and watched Federer establish himself as the best player ever. Among these great players were Pete Sampras, the previous grand slam record holder. He sat in the Royal Box along with Rod Laver and Bjorn Borg to witness this great event. Rod Laver and Bjorn Borg are considered among best players in the history of professional tennis. After the match, Federer and the three other former champions got together for a picture and talked for a while. It was a great moment for tennis.

Tennis in America

While this was an amazing moment in professional tennis, it was also great for American tennis. The popularity of tennis in the United States has dropped a great deal in recent years. This is largely due to the lack of a great American player in the pros. Professional players play an important role in the success of a sport. They are in the spotlight and when they accomplish great things, it inspires young athletes to be like them. The sport of tennis was at its peak in the 1970’s. Back then, everyone was playing. People waited for hours just to get on a court and play. The extreme popularity of the sport in those days was largely due to the success of many American professional players. While the popularity of tennis declined slightly as the years passed, it still remained a very popular sport on through the 1990’s. As the turn of the century came around, the great champions from the U.S. began to retire and no one seemed to take their place. Pete Sampras retired in 2002 and he was the last great champion that the Americans have seen. The last American to win a major championship was Andy Roddick in 2003. While Roddick showed great promise with his first major title, he never managed to win another. Now Roddick has brought pride back to American tennis by taking the greatest player in history to 16-14 in the fifth set. Even though he lost, he gave Americans something to cheer for again. That is why this was such a great moment for American tennis.

Tennis is a very popular sport in most countries, but in America it has shown a steep decline in recent years. Since tennis isn’t getting as much attention in the U.S., few people know much about it. Most Americans know the rules and how to keep score in popular sports such as football, basketball, baseball, and golf. Very few of them seem to know much at all about tennis. Being a tennis player myself, I can relate very well to this. I talk about sports a lot with my friends, but anytime I bring up tennis, they don’t seem to understand. I played tennis in high school and my friends would come to watch a lot of my matches. Most of them didn’t even know how to keep score so they would have to have someone explain to them if I was winning or not. Since the sport tends to be confusing for many people to follow, we rarely had a lot of fans at our matches. Football and Basketball games were much more exciting because people knew what was going on.

How to Keep Score

Tennis has a lot of rules, which makes it harder to understand than most sports. The most important thing in tennis is to know how to keep score. The three main terms used in scoring are point, game, and set. A game is made up of points. To keep it simple, a game is won by the player that gets four points first, but they must win by 2. For example, a player cannot win a game if the score is 4-3. They must win another point to make the score 5-3. That way they have won four points, but they have also won by 2. Each point in a game has a unique number or term. One point = 15, Two points = 30, and 3 points = 40. If a player wins four points then the game is over and so there is not a term for four points. However when both players are tied at 4, it is called deuce. In order to win the game a player must win two points in a row after the deuce point, making the score six to four. A set is the made up of games. The first player to win six games by two wins the set. A match is usually the best two out of three sets. Hopefully that cleared things up for you if you were unsure in how to keep score before, if not then you can at least understand why scoring in tennis is so complicated and hard to understand.