The magic tricks of Federer, as they seem, will no longer remain exclusive to him. Like I said, there is one Bulgarian, known as Grigor Dimitrov, who looks all set to reproduce the magic which we used to see, time and again, from Federer’s racket.

It does not require someone to go and interview the Bulgarian who he has idolized Federer while growing up as a professional, because the guy who does everything in the court the same manner as Roger would never have someone else as his idol. The way he serves, the way he positions himself receiving the serves or the way he way he plays his shots, in all, he presents himself to be an absolute carbon copy of Roger Federer.

Till sometime back, may be a year or so, he started to appear to replicate Roger Federer but only to a certain extent, and we saw the great man in him. Now we are seeing all his shots, barring backhand slice, resembling those of Roger’s. Dimitrov’s slice keeps on ballooning over the baseline when he tries to play it on succession and that is where he is not able to catch up with the Swiss No.1. He also is not playing forehand down the line as much as Roger used to do, but the way things are going for him, it will not be a surprise if he dupes the Swiss in entirety in a short while from now.

Though he has done so well at junior level, he is yet to bring in the same flair at the senior level. But it is too early to start comparing him to Roger Federer, who in his early days, had confronted many debacles before he finally reached the tennis pinnacle. He has done well to reach the semifinals of Queens this year, only to lose to a guy like David Nalbandian which is no disgrace. In a couple of years’ time, if he could imbibe in himself the passion that Roger has been having for tennis, we would be seeing a new grand slam champ on both Grass and hard courts.

We have seen the “Replica” of Roger Federer above and now we are about to see a new “Rival” of the Swiss.

For those who have not seen the epic fourth round between Roger Federer and Pete Sampras in Wimbledon 2001, they can hope for such a thing to reoccur. Of course, Sampras is not going to be at the other side of the net but maybe a Canadian – Milos Raonic can compensate for the Greek American’s absence. Since a long time now, I have not seen a perfect server as Sampras. There are of course, Karlovics and Isners nowadays and there had been ruthless servers like Philippousis, Rusedskis and Ivanisevics before. They are/were very good in serving aces consistently but their opponents on the other side knew full well that they would be getting at least one weaker service game on which they could capitalize.

But Sampras had never been the one who had granted his service game to anyone at any stage of the game. He not only served aces but served them big when needed. Even if it did not turn out to be an ace it would at least be something which was unreturnable. His serves, even his second serves, would come with such a pace that the receiver would need to press hard to return it and by that time Sampras would have completed the formalities by approaching the nets. The void left by Sampras, at least on serve part, is being filled nowadays by Milos Raonic.

The Canadian is slowly becoming one of the hardest servers in the world of tennis. Almost all his matches are bound to have atleast one tie breaker set because it is impossible to see him serve four bad serves in succession. Though he is not a great mover on the court and has an error prone double handed backhand, the rest of his game looks very penetrative. He has so far played three matches against Roger Federer and in all of those he could take a set of the latter. When this man serves on grass and hard courts, his opponents can only pray that the set goes to the tie breaker which could be their last and only chance to win a set.

He looks so destructive on his service games, both to the forehand and backhand corners of his opponents. He can only improve from here and if only he corrects his backhand a bit, which anyway is not so bad, he can be a very dangerous opponent. Though we are construing Nadals and Djokovics as the rivals of Roger Federer, their style of play is entirely different to that of the Maestro. Both the Spaniard and the World No.1 Serb play the baseline game which is not Federer’s cup of tea. Maybe in view of their successes against Federer we can call them as his rivals but definitely not on the basis of their game.

Milos looks to be improving as an all court player and he, just like Roger, seems to finish of the points rather quickly. I have a gut feeling that we are in to see a Federer – Raonic epic, most likely in this year’s Wimbledon, though all dependent on the type of draw eventually. Federer may still get through but would be a great treat to watch players with similar attitude. If Milos can fire aces, Federer also can and in fact, the Swiss used to serve better against the powerful servers.

If Federer stays fit for the next couple of years, the match between the two will be a real treat for all tennis fans.

So, there is one “Replica” of Roger and one budding “Rival” of Roger in men’s tennis today. Are they going to be the future of tennis? I truly think so.

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