Roger Federer
I am a huge tennis fan, and I spent a better part of yesterday morning watching the finals of Australian Open. I was disappointed that Marin Čilić did not make it there, but playing in his first ever Grand Slam semifinal was already his best success to date. He is young and clearly on the rise, and I am confident that Croatia will once again have a player in the very top echelons of World tennis.
The final was between Andy Murray and Roger Federer. The former was seeking his first Grand Slam title and the first one for Britain in more than seventy years. The latter, on the other hand, already achieved everything that can be achieved in tennis and then some. With 15 Grand Slam titles under his belt, and still in his top form, it is unlikely that anyone will get even close to this level of dominance of the game any time soon, if ever. And sure enough, Federer managed to win this match in a very convincing fashion, without losing a set.
Some people find watching Federer play to be extremely boring, with the final outcome seldom in doubt. I, however, really enjoy his extremely elegant playing style. Everything he does on the court seems so effortless. His perfect technique has enabled him to exert himself much less than most other players on the tour, which has helped him stave-off injuries for all these years.
As he has sealed his name in all kinds of record books Federer has also become much more forthright and blunt in his public announcements. More often than he used to he would point out the difference in the amount of talent when asked about his domination over one top player or another in their mutual encounters. This has made commentators, especially the US ones, cringe. He is quietly and confidently demolishing one of the most cherished myths of American public ethos: if you work hard enough, you can achieve anything. It turns out that's not quite the case. For most of us, even if we had the tenacity and single-mindedness to work insane hours at some task, if this task is well outside of our range of abilities we will not be able to achieve success in it. As an educator, I have to deal with this unfortunate truth all the time. Most of the students are usually good about this, and they know their limits better than anyone else. But there are those cases where a student was pushed into a particular class or field of study despite their ability to succeed at it. In those instances reality check becomes very painful for both me as an instructor and the student in question. Hopefully, Federer will be able to erode a bit of that unfortunate myth of universal ability to achieve anything. That could in the long run prove to be his greatest legacy.