Wimbledon - Fingers Crossed

Those were the most tensed moments of my life. I was watching the television with the pillow pressed to my chest, so hard that I could feel my heart throb into the cushion. It was Pete Sampras playing against the great Boris Becker in the 1995 finals. After two hours of power plays, great serve and volley, Sampras pulls off his third consecutive Wimbledon victory. "Hooray! He did it again."

I got acquainted with the game of tennis in the year 1993. The first match I saw was between Sampras and Jim Courier, where Sampras came back from two sets down to wrap the match. Since then, for the next nine years I hardly missed any of his grand slam matches. Pistol Pete was my childhood hero. I cheered each of his seven championships on the grass courts of Wimbledon. Wimbledon’s a place where champions are born and the baton gets passed from one champion to another. The baton passed from Bjorn Borg to John McEnroe, from McEnroe to Boris Becker, from Becker to Pete Sampras and now from Sampras to Roger Federer.

WIMBLEDON 2008

The oldest of all grand slams and the greatest, Wimbledon gets mixed reactions from players. Few feel comfortable and win with ease and the rest never get to understand the surface. But this year the top 3 players are all ready for it. Wimbledon was never so close in the past decade. True, ‘Killer Calm’ has won the championship for a record five consecutive times but he is no longer the indomitable. ‘The Ape Man’ has just devastated him and had him embarrassed in lop sided French Open final. And then the Ape Man pulls off victories over ‘The Other A-Rod’ and ‘Djoker’ in immediate grass open tournament, which he had never done before.

The tennis legend Bjorn Borg has choosen Ape Man to be the Wimbledon Champion. I agree with him. I appreciate Killer Calm, but then I am an ardent fan of Pistol Pete and I want his 7 time championship record to hold. I believe that the Ape Man and Djoker are emissaries sent by Illuvatar on a mission to destroy Killer Calm. And so far this year they have stuck to their tasks.

As the tournament is about to begin I have my fingers crossed.

Legend:

Pete Sampras – Pistol Pete - 7 time winner

Bjorn Borg – 5 time winner

Boris Becker – 3 time winner

Roger Federer – Killer Calm – 5 time winner

Rafael Nadal – The Ape Man - 2 time finalist

Djokovic – Djoker - 2007 Semi Finalist

Andy Roddick - The Other A-Rod - 2 time finalist