Mission accomplished, at last!

I thought I'd drop a short note about our beloved Roger Federer finally fulfilling his dream of adding the Coupe des Mousquetaires to his already large collection of Grand Slam trophies. Not to mention equaling Pete Sampras' haul of 14 Grand Slam titles and completing a career Grand Slam. Talk about hitting three birds with one stone!

The Swiss champ dismantled opponent Robin Soderling in straight sets 6-1 7-6(1) 6-4 in the finals yesterday to win the one Grand slam title that has eluded him for the longest time, thanks to longtime rival, Rafael Nadal's incredible feats on clay in the past four years.

A clearly relieved Federer said of this historic win:

I think that now and until the end of my career, I can really play with my mind at peace, and no longer hear that I've never won Roland Garros.

Now that that gap in his already impressive resume has been filled, one can't help but look forward to the rest of the season and the years to come.

All hail, King Roger the Great! Long live King Roger the Great!
Photo credit: Matthew Stockman/Getty Images (Top) and AFT/Getty Images (Bottom)

Pete Sampras on Federer

Another past tennis great had something to say about Federer. Before he was inducted into the tennis Hall of Fame, 14-time Grand Slam winner Pete Sampras said this of his meeting with Roger before the AMS tournament at Indian Wells earlier this year :

He came by, and we hit for two days, and it was a lot of fun to not only hit with Roger, but to get to know him a little bit.We talked for two hours after one hit. He's a great guy; he's a funny guy. He's a young kid in a lot of ways.

When he breaks my record, he's the type of person I'd like to see break it. In my opinion, he's what sports is all about.

I was amused--though not surprised--when Sampras remarked that Roger was a "young kid in a lot of ways". Roger certainly seems serious on court but haven't we heard of Roger playing pranks on other players in the locker room? And even more interesting is that Sampras used the word "when" and not "if" when he talked of Federer breaking his record of 14 grand slam titles. Like Borg with Wimbledon, it seems he's accepted the fact that Federer may overtake him in the all-time grand slam winners list.

Federer vs. Sampras II

Nope, this isn't going to be another essay on that (tiresome) debate on which of the two great tennis players is greater. Just news that Federer revealed that he got to practice with Sampras for two days(!) in the latter's Beverly Hills home in the lead-up to the Indian Wells Masters Series.

Well, I knew I was coming to L.A., so I'm kind of thinking, who's around in L.A.? So, I rang up Pete and said, "Any chance?" He was like, "Yeah, sure." I'm totally excited. So right away I had the idea, anyway seeing how good he plays because he was one of my favorite players, when I was growing up and beating him in his backyard in Wimbledon was so special to me. I wanted to try to -- I wanted to beat him in his house. So it was very enjoyable to actually hit with him. It would be kind of cool to maybe play an exhibition against him. We'll see. But he was playing very well.