“There is no rule passed in sports, especially for immortals, that they have to beat the other top guy to make history. What you do is show up and play who you play.”
Roger Federer won the French Open Sunday for the first time, completing the career Grand Slam and tying Pete Sampras with 14 Grand Slam titles.
In the process, Federer reopened his application to be tennis’s greatest player ever. He and Sampras are tied at the top in terms of Grand Slams (with apologies to Rod Laver, who missed much of his prime because of NCAA-ish rules on what constituted an amateur at the time), and Federer’s win in Roland Garros—a place Pete never even made the Finals—would seem to be the tiebreaker.
There’s one problem, though: The guy Federer beat Sunday wasn’t Rafael Nadal. It was Robin Soderling.
No Pun Intended 