Yeah. . .it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt! Today at Wimbledon, it was Tommy Haas feeling the pain of defeat as Roger Federer trounced him in the semifinals in three sets: 7-6, 7-5, 6-3. Not that he seemed too distraught about it:
Q. Can you sum up your whole Wimbledon experience. It’s been a special one for you.
TOMMY HAAS: It was great. I couldn’t be any happier.
Roger, of course, exists on a completely different plane when it comes to happiness. Check out some of these giddy numbers (via The Age):
Federer will play a seventh consecutive Wimbledon final, a record since the abolition of the challenge round in 1922 whereby the defending champion was automatically elevated to the final. That broke Federer’s tie with Bjorn Borg (a finalist from 1976-81) who was one of the legends court-side, along with Australia’s Rod Laver, another whom the Swiss now rubs shoulders in the game’s pantheon.
This will also be Federer’s 20th grand slam final, one more than Ivan Lendl with whom had shared the all-time record. The 27 year-old has played in 15 of the last 16 grand slam finals – a streak broken at the 2008 Australian Open – and has won 10 of those.
Here’s Mr. Happy on what the records mean to him:
ROGER FEDERER: Yeah, I mean, look, I’m very proud of all the records I’ve achieved, because I never thought I would be, you know, that successful as a kid. You know, I would have been happy winning a couple tournaments and maybe collecting Wimbledon, you know, sort of achieving the dream scenario, you know.
But not really all those records. But it’s quite staggering now, you know, having reached again I think it’s my sixth straight Grand Slam final I’ve achieved, as well. Having so many things going for me now again, opportunity again on Sunday, it’s fantastic.
Quite amazing to be back in the Wimbledon final already because it seems like now all of a sudden everything happened very quickly.
Of course the record everyone cares about is the one he tied a couple weeks ago in Paris. Roger will have to beat Andy Roddick in Sunday’s final to reach the top of tennis mountain: 15th Heaven, anyone?
Thanks to GTT reader, Goldi, for sharing the video!
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