Federerophobia

Right since 2004, a player is not judged by how many grandslams he wins nor by how many tournaments he wins. He would be associated with high quality of the extraordinary league of players only if he has defeated Federer. A very few achieved the feat of defeating this extremely talented player. Other than the losses to Marat Safin in the Australian Open Semi final, Rafael Nadal in the French Semi final, David Nalbandian in the Shanghai masters series Final and Richard Gasquet in the ATP Masters Series Monte Carlo, he had a 81 victory stand in 2005. That's an unbelievable 81-4 win-loss record for one complete year. Such was the dominance of this magician on court. Even extremely talented and top players like Leyton Hewitt, Andy Roddick and Andre Agassi had admitted to Federer being closest to undefeatable. Most players would loose the match even before they went on court. Such was the mark he made on his opponents minds. Correctly termed as "Federerophobia". Hewitt lost a whole lot of confidence and dropped out of the top 10 in the rankings. Roddick dropped out of the top 3.
Then came Nadal, the only kid who Federer is stil not able to figure out. While Nadal always had problems with many other players like James Blake and Leyton Hewitt, he somehow found the way to attack Federer's backhand with his extremely heavy topspin. They go 6-1 head to head in favour of Nadal. Now maybe Federerophobia has struck back at Federer himself. The French open final suggested a very weary and demotivated Federer. He seemed totally off focus and as if his mind was someplace else. Maybe he has this mental block over Nadal what many other players had over him. Even in the Gerry Weber tournament in Germany, he has been thoroughly tested by players like Olivier Rochus, Tommy Haas, Richard Gasquet against whom he saved four match points before scrapping through. This is totally unlike the magician we witnessed on court. People like Hewitt and Roddick have begun to believe, that Federer is afterall not invincible. Even though it's a good sign for tennis, with increase in competition, it is bad news for Federer and his invincibility. He now needs some tournament victories, especially wimbledon, to get back on track. Let's hope he lives on to the hopes of many legendary tennis stars like John Mcnroe and Matts Wilander that he would go on to be a legendary tennis star.
Go Federer Go!!! You are the emporer of tennis...