For quite some time, People had been dying to see that vintage Roger Federer smile that comes on his face only when he wins a title. He had last smiled in that fashion in June 2013 and finally, after about 9 months, he did so again yesterday when he got better of Tomas Berdych of Czech Republic in the final match of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championship.
Federer would have been very confident going into the match against Berdych as he had unexpectedly defeated the no. 2 player in the world Novak Djokovic in the semi final, but, his confidence was not translating into performance at the start of the match. He mistimed quite a lot of shots in the opening set and as a result, he lost it.
But, he showed his ‘never say die’ attitude in the second and the third set and achieved the glory.
This was the 78th singles title won by Federer. Now, he is at the third position in the all time list of the players who have had the most number of singles title under their belt.
Speaking in the post match interview, Federer said, “In the last few tournaments, I had not been able to produce my best performance in the big matches, but, in this tournament, I did so. It really feels wonderful to win a title after a while.”
“It’s always good to win because that gives you points and thus, the luxury of withdrawing from some of the tournaments. You can sort out your schedule once you win a big tournament like Grand Slam.”
Federer is currently not even in top 5 in the world rankings. He has just got 2950 points which is a lot lesser than what the top ranked player Rafael Nadal has got.