It's Official: Roger Federer “Simply the Best, Better Than All the Rest”

(Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)

It’s become a standard in the tennis arenas of the world. Tina Turner cranked up to full voice as Roger Federer walks onto court, or wins another set, or closes in on one more title.

Flushing Meadow played it during the US Open final.

Rome belted it out as Federer took the first set off Novak Djokovic.

Shanghai erupted like a blue cauldron around which Tina reverberated.

But the one place in the world that resists the carnival atmosphere—the quiet centre around which the world’s tennis roadshow revolves—became the place where Tina’s words were made flesh.

Roger Federer—himself the quiet centre of this emerald kingdom—won his 15th Grand Slam title today, and officially became the best man ever to wield a tennis racquet.

Tina may have been absent when King Federer was actually crowned, but her words were especially appropriate at Wimbledon.

This was the scene of Federer’s very first Slam win in 2003, and he has reached every final of this tournament since. On only one of those occasions did he fail to win—and then just by a hair’s breadth, last year, against Rafael Nadal in one of the most intensely fought matches ever seen on Centre Court.

Last year was a different Federer, though. 2008 began with glandular fever, and his immune system and fitness struggled throughout the year. At Wimbledon itself, he bore the facial scar of a cyst and the mental scar of a brutal beating at Roland Garros.

Nadal ate away at his ranking points, and new names picked him off—not least Andy Murray and Djokovic.

After Federer’s Wimbledon loss came defeat at the Olympics and the capitulation of the No. 1 ranking he had held for 237 weeks. Eventually he was forced off the tennis treadmill with back injury.

But Federer is no ordinary competitor.

Although the start of 2009 saw Nadal heading away over the horizon, and Murray and Djokovic snapping at his heels, Federer continued to plough his own furrow.

He resisted calls to take on a trainer, and refuted media claims that his best was behind him. And, as is so often the case, Federer proved that he knows best.

The time out for rehab, marriage and intensive training brought him back to his pre-2008 form. He came into Wimbledon 2009 on the back of two straight titles from Madrid and the French Open, and with the baying critics off his back.

His game at his favourite Slam improved with each successive round, and pundits started to sit up and take notice. The Federer quality, panache and class were back in full working order. And—most worryingly of all for his opponents—he looked relaxed and confident.

Early rounds saw him practise a newly-cultivated drop shot, his serve-and-volley and a rejuvenated backhand that alternated between offensive and defensive in the blink of an eye.

And the engine house of his game, the serve, oiled itself into perfect order. By the semifinal against Tommy Haas, he was hitting 75 percent of his first serves—identical to that of Andy Roddick in his semi.

So like some perfectly crafted screenplay, Federer and Roddick joined forces in the very place they first battled it out in a Grand Slam. The year Federer won that first golden cup, in 2003, he beat Roddick in the semifinal.

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