Murray's Gold Medal Performance on the Green Grass of Wimbledon

I am cutting in a bit on my own NFL Previews and predictions to talk a little tennis today.

            For the first time, really, I got a chance to watch a significant amount of these Olympics. My schedule is crazy, and perhaps particularly lately, the last few days or so, and so I had not as of yet gotten the opportunity to watch any of the Olympics. But I am an avid follower of tennis. It is the one sport that I have gotten much more into the older I got, rather than less. So, I was a bit shocked to find out that the Gold Medal match for the women had already happened, while the Men's match was scheduled for Sunday morning (EST).

            So, it was time to watch my first tennis match of these Olympics. It looked quite enticing: a rematch of last month's Wimbledon Men's Final.

            Now, I can admit to being wrong here. I, like many others, have been very impressed with Roger Federer. Not just his excellent style of play, either, which is truly quite extraordinary. I like the way that he carries himself with dignity, style, grace, and class. He is respectful, mature, and in many respects, exactly how you would think that a champion of tennis should carry himself. In an age of in your face kind of sports attitude, his relatively quiet and subdued approach is a refreshing change of pace. So, I really began to admire him. Plus, his on the court performance was not so bad, either.

            The Fed, as he is affectionately known, has done some amazing things in his career. He has won the career Grand Slam, one of only seven men in history to have done so. He has managed to achieve historical dominance in his sport, like few ever enjoy in their sport, holding onto the number one ranking without a single hitch for over four straight years, a new record, piling up wins and titles. In the process, he managed to both win more Grand Slams, and qualify for more Grand Slam Finals, then any other man in history, and by a considerable margin, to boot. He also achieved a record streak of consecutive semi finals at Grand Slams, as well as of quarterfinals – and the quarterfinal streak is still an active one, even as he reached the age of 30! Federer has held three of the four Grand Slams at one time at several points in his career, something that had formerly been considered very rare, and rather an unreal level of performance. He bounced back from losing the number one status when his main rival, Nadal, suffered an injury, and in that time period, finally won on the clay courts of the French Open, the one Grand Slam that had consistently eluded him. Eventually he was overtaken again by a healthy Nadal, and Nadal was himself overtaken by rising star Djokovic. But earlier this year, Federer, seemingly against all odds, managed to raise his level of play and recapture Wimbledon, tying Sampras's record of seven Wimbledon titles, and recapturing the number one ranking in the process – this time managing to overtake Sampras's old record of overall weeks atop the rankings, so that he is in sole possession of the record now.

Again, this he achieved at 30 years old.

What does that say about him? It says that he has been consistently greater than any of his rivals, and that includes both Djokovic and Nadal, both of whom he recently overtook to reach number one. We had never seen anything like him before. In short, he was dominant, in every sense of the word, more than his rivals.

Nadal's injuries, although unfortunate to the sport, are nonetheless a part of the game, and a hindrance to his otherwise potentially very strong claim to being the best of all time. Given that Nadal has managed to win two years atop the rankings, in 2008 and 2010, he certainly has no shortage of accomplishments in his own right. He looked like he might be dominant on a level coming close to Federer in both 2008 and 2010. But there is the matter of 2009 and 2011, as well as the present year, to consider. Because in those years, he simply did not dominate. Injuries plagued him in 2009, and sidelined him until 2010. He reclaimed the top spot in men's tennis in 2010, but then was overtaken, not by injury, but by a rising Djokovic, at precisely the moment when it seemed he was truly emerging as the dominant figure in the men's circuit. Nadal managed to win the 2012 French Open, and in the process, cemented his status not only as one of the all-time greats, bouncing back from three consecutive Grand Slam Final defeats to Djokovic by beating him on the terre batu, but in the process overtaking Bjorg's historic clay court dominance. Nadal is now, in  effect, the most dominant clay court specialist the sport has ever seen. Yet, he was ousted in the second round at Wimbledon again this year, and seems injury plagued once again.

As for Djokovic, he rose to number one with a historical year in 2011. His record was superb, rivaling some of the great years of all time, at least at first – I am talking about John McEnroe's 1984 calendar year, as well as Roger Federer's historic 2005 calendar year. In the process, he not only won his first Grand Slam titles since 2008, an absence of three years from the ranks of Grand Slam winners! But he really made up for it, wining three of the four Grand Slams in 2011, and ripping the men's top ranking from a suddenly deflated and almost pedestrian looking Nadal. Then, he started off 2012 in equally dominant fashion, winning his third overall Australian title, and entering 2012 in the same way that he ended off 2011 So, it was the era of Djokovic now, right?

Not exactly, just yet. He did lose in the French Open Final to Nadal, proving just how amazing Nadal is on clay. Then, Djokovic lost in the Wimbledon Semifinal to Federer, with the number one ranking on the line. It took Federer years and years of being the top dog to finally lose a match with so much on the line like that. But Federer himself took it away from Djokovic after only a year. Then, Djokovic followed that up with a huge disappointment in the Olympics, losing to Murray in the semifinal, and then losing to Del Potro in the Bronze Medal Game, thus failing to medal.

That is not to say that Djokovic, or Nadal, for that matter, are done. Far from it. In fact, it seems more than likely (to me, at least), that they probably will both have their turn atop the rankings at some point in the future again, and both will likely win not only more tournaments, but more Grand Slams – in the plural. They are excellent, after all.

But they simply are not on the level of complete dominance that Federer reached when he was at his peak. Not in terms of play and wiping out their opponents, and not in terms of longevity of their peak performances. Nadal has come closest to matching Federer's level, yet he is not there yet. He could, and probably should, get there again. But he has to contend with Federer (which he has done successfully in the past). But he also has to contend with Djokovic, who he has had considerably more difficulty with lately. Djokovic really has to win quite a bit more to truly reach the historical level of either Federer or Nadal, since each of those men have won double digit Grand Slam titles, as well as career Grand Slams. He is still very much among the elites in the sport, and is not done yet, for sure. But he has a long, long way to go before he begins to truly rival the long term success of Nadal, let alone Federer. It is not a given that he will do so, either.

So, yes, Federer is probably the greatest player in the history of the sport.

Yet, there was one accomplishment that had eluded him. An accomplishment that is even rarer than the career Grand Slam, since it includes having achieved the career Grand Slam. That would be the career Golden Slam, as it is known, which means having won all four Grand Slam events, as well as the Olympic Gold medal in singles play. The first man to have achieved that was Andre Agassi in the nineties. Nadal managed to secure the feat in 2010, when he won the one Grand Slam that had formerly eluded him – the US Open. So, in a sense, Nadal had something over Federer, and it probably was nagging at Federer, who is, after all, a great competitor.

Roger Federer had an uncharacteristically bad tournament at the 2004 Athens games, cursing and showing rare anger from him, as he lost too early to medal. He then lost in the quarterfinal round in the 2008 Beijing games, and had to watch his main rival, Nadal, take the gold at the height of his powers then. It should be noted that Djokovic took the bronze at these games. It also should be noted that Federer himself not only got a medal at these games, but won a gold medal. But that was in doubles competition, not singles. Many felt that Federer was too old and that it would be unrealistic to think he could make a serious run at the singles gold this time around.

They were wrong. He played exemplary tennis, showing why he was able to reclaim the world number one spot. Indeed, he looked spectacular, and had an amazing semifinal performance, outdueling Del Potro in an epic semifinal match to reach the Gold Medal Game against perennial runner up Murray.

If Federer had been the ultimate champion at the top level, then Murray was rather on the other end of it going into this final match. He had qualified for four Grand Slam finals, but had failed to win a single one. It looked like he was coming very close when he reached the Wimbledon Final earlier this year, but lost in a dominant display to a rejuvenated Federer, who managed to retake the number one ranking with that win.

So, this would be a rematch, but it did not go according to plans. Federer surely would not be denied, so close to achieving the one accomplishment that had so far eluded him in his career, right?

Wrong! Boy, was I ever wrong! Murray completely dominated Roger Federer, and did to Roger what Roger had done to so many others for so long. He made Roger look old and slow and irrelevant. From about the midway point of the second set on, this match looked predetermined and inevitable. Murray simply would not be denied. Where he had failed before in such huge tournament finals, he succeeded this time around, following through and doing just about everything right. The match itself was downright ugly, and looked more like a complete mismatch.

When it was officially over – and it was over long before it was officially over – Roger Federer walked up to meet Murray at the net. Murray was celebrating his biggest victory in his career, and the look on Federer's face said it all. Uncharacteristically, he had failed to capitalize on perhaps his greatest chance to achieve one more measure of immortality. It may have been Federer's most important match in his career, quite literally. But this time, he came up empty. This time, he lost.

He may have lost the opportunity to win an individual gold at the games in the process, although with Roger Federer, you never know. You simply cannot count him out as a possibly serious contender in the 2016 games. But even that might be a bit too much for him, as he will be in his mid-thirties by then.

Congratulations to Andy Murray on his biggest break through and a historic gold medal performance! As Fed says, no reason to feel sorry for him. I think the marathon match with Del Potro may have exhausted him, though. But be that as it may, you can take nothing away from the brilliant display of dominance that Murray put on yesterday. He put on a clinic on the court out there, and maybe served notice that, for those who want to discuss tennis greatness, Murray's name itself might soon be hard to avoid.