New bawls please!
Champ’s boy unmoved by tears of Roger and his rival
IT takes a lot of blood, sweat and tears to become a sporting champion.
And Wimbledon’s Centre Court was certainly not short of the latter yesterday as Roger Federer became the first man to win the tournament eight times.
His Croatian opponent Marin Cilic, who reached the final for the first time in his career, broke down in the middle of the match, sobbing into his towel in the second set as Federer led 3-0.
Federer then wept with joy as he clinched the victory. The Swiss chamstarted pion became the oldest man to win a Wimbledon final in the Open Era at 35 years and 342 days. He was also the first man to win without dropping a set since Bjorn Borg in 1976.
After looking at his family watching from the stands – including his children who were pulling silly faces – Federer began to weep as his historic win sunk in.
After Cilic’s earlier breakdown, the 28-year-old at one point also whacked a chair in frustration with his racket. He took a medical time out before the third set for a trainer to examine his foot.
Commentators noticed Cilic, the world No 6, was struggling both mentally and physically. Tim Henman told the BBC he was ‘looking completely lost out there’, while former champion Pat Cash tweeted: ‘Sad to see Cilic in such bad shape. Unlucky with injury but huge respect on fighting through the pain. A true warrior.’
Presenter Clare Balding wrote: ‘Poor Cilic looks emotionally and physically broken.’
Speaking after his defeat, Cilic said he was in pain because of a blister on his foot, but that he crying out of frustration. He said: ‘Obviously it was very tough emotionally because I know how much I went through in the last few months in preparation. It was also tough because of my own team. They did so much for me.’
He added: ‘It was very, very difficult to deal with it ... It didn’t hurt so much that it was putting me in tears. It was just that feeling that I wasn’t able to give the best.’
Federer sailed through 6-3, 6-1, 6-4, winning in just one hour 41 minutes. It was his 11th Wimbledon final and came 14 years after he first took the title. After he was presented with the trophy, Kate Middleton congratulated the world No 5 with three kisses, while Prince William shook his hand.
Federer’s children with wife Mirka – three year-old twins Lenny and Leo, and another set of twins, Charlene and Myla, aged seven – were watching, but the importance of his victory seemed to pass the boys by somewhat. Lenny and Leo, dressed in matching blue jackets, were seen fooling around pulling silly faces, while their older sisters tried to convince them to clap instead.
Federer yesterday admitted the children came ‘just for the finals’, adding: ‘I think the younger twins think this is a nice view and a nice playground – hopefully one day they’ll understand.’ The star, who took home £2.2million in prize money, told the BBC immediately after his victory: ‘It means the world for me. It’s disbelief that I can achieve such heights...I believed maybe I could come back here and do it again. If you believe you can go really far in your life.’