Roger Federer - A great role model

A role model is a person who inspires, who we look up to, respect and aspire to become. It can be anyone from our family or any great personality who has impressed us. But such persons play a vital role in our life, forming our beliefs and shaping our future.

My role model is Roger Federer.

In any sport there is a great personality whom we look up to. In Football there is Pele, in Golf it is Tiger Woods, in Cricket there is Sachin. I believe in tennis it is Roger Federer.

Roger Federer has a record of being a 17-time Grand Slam Champion, record of staying at the #1 position for consecutive 237 weeks and many more.

Roger Federer was born on August 8th, 1981 in Basel, Switzerland.

He has a great serve and an aggressive forehand, which are considered his strengths. He is a single backhanded player. But even with a single hand backhand he manages to get winners, where in this open era players opt for double handed backhand to produce more power and speed. This proves how strong he is technically, by still using old fashioned one-handed backhand.

Federer is sometimes referred to “Federer Express” or in short “FedEx” and “Swiss Maestro” or “Maestro”.

There are certain qualities of him which makes him different from all other players. The major difference being his achievements. Federer dominated the game from 2003-2009. He just went on winning one Grand Slam after another. Nothing stopped him from winning. Even in this era, which had many good players who gave fierce competition, Federer has always been on top. This showcases his greatness and superiority in competition.

He has won almost all titles that exist. There was a situation where everyone gave up competing for the top spot. Federer had many rivals and opponents. But his head-to-head record is always on his side against almost all players.

He also has a record of 287 weeks in the #1 position. He has also appeared in 24 Grand Slam finals, 10 of them in a row. Federer has never looked vulnerable to any injury. We see players quitting from Grand Slam events due to injuries. But he was never prone to any major injuries. This proves how hard he trains. We can just say that it was his heart towards that game that made him achieve what he has.

Federer is always admired for his humility and politeness. He always remains graceful and humble in his defeats and wins. He also respects his opponents. Also the way he accepts his defeats and stays humble in victories is a trait which we can imbibe from him. He always remains his cool, however tough the challenge maybe.

And I feel lucky to be living in the same generation as this great man, so that I can watch him closely the way he achieves one milestone after another and try to emulate the same things in my life.