Legendary Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar has always been renowned as one of most correct batsman in the world when it comes to textbook technique. But, on Monday, he has got a competitor in tennis legend Roger Federer, who channeled his inner Tendulkar during his round of 16 match at the Wimbledon Cup.
The Swiss maestro outplayed his opponent Adrian Manarinno in three sets, but it was a smooth flow of the racket in the third set which caught the eyes of cricket fans.
Federer over-hit a backhand and when his opponent politely returned the ball, the eight-time Wimbledon champion elected to churn out his inner cricketer and he chose to punch a forward defense, which didn’t go unnoticed by Wimbledon’s social media accounts.
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Wimbledon was quick to notice and in a tongue-in-cheek tweet, they asked ICC to rate Federer’s shot. Their tweet read: “Ratings for @rogerfederer’s forward defense, @ICC?”
Ratings for @rogerfederer's forward defence, @ICC?#Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/VVAt2wHPa4
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 9, 2018
Federer is more renowned for defending tennis titles than playing forward defenses, but this sharp left-handed shot displayed his intrinsic sporting talent. Furthermore, it was straight out the middle of the strings, similar to Sachin use to play the forward defense straight out the middle of the bat.
ICC was quick to respond to Wimbledon and the cricketing body joked about ranking Roger as the No. 1 Test batsmen in the World. ICC shared a screenshot of the Test batting rankings which showed the 20-time Grand Slam winner as the No. 1 Test batsmen in the World.
*sigh* ok… 👇 pic.twitter.com/KXnhaznxL8
— ICC (@ICC) July 9, 2018
The International cricket body also compared Federer’s shot with the defensive strokes played by cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar and shared a meme showing Sachin Tendulkar meeting Roger Federer, describing the two as “greatness”.
When greatness recognises greatness 👌 pic.twitter.com/UB2hJli5gw
— ICC (@ICC) July 9, 2018
Roger will now lock horns with Kevin Anderson in the quarterfinal on Wednesday. Anderson got past Gael Monfils 6-7 (4-7), 6-7 (2-7), 7-5, 6-7 (4-7)
