World Champions

Congratulations to Manny Pacquiao for successfully defending his WBC international super featherweight title against Erik Morales.

It was a decisive win – knockout in only the 3rd round which is a far cry from the last two battles these two boxing greats had (one going the full distance and the other ending in a 10th round TKO). I was actually worried that Pacquiao wouldn’t do that well. Mainly coz I thought that he was spending too much time working on his endorsements and heck even his album. So I was very pleased and relieved even that he won.

Of course, I’m still not a fan of boxing or any sport that requires one person to beat up someone else. I mean, losing in any sport sucks as it is. But it must suck a hell of a lot more when you lose because you’ve been hit so hard in the head so many times that you can’t even stand on your own two legs anymore. I actually felt bad for Morales. But not bad enough that I would want him to win of course.

It’s great that with Manny’s win, there is another positive headline about the Philippines (or someone from here).

On the other side of the world, massive props go out to Roger Federer as well. This guy won every single round robin match he played against stiff competition – Andy Roddick, David Nalbandian (who is one of a few people who have a winning head-to-head against Roger), and Ivan Ljubicic (although okay, Ivan has never beaten Roger ever). Then in the semifinals, he beat his nemesis Rafael Nadal (who is one of a few people who have a winning head-to-head against him) before absolutely crushing James Blake in the finals.

Federer is slowly racking up records left and right. He was the first player to break $7 million in career earnings in a single year, and then as if he wasn’t content with that, he goes on to win the Shanghai Masters and thus break the $8 million mark in single-year career earnings. He's won double-digit titles each year for three consecutive years. He is also the only male player to win 8 Grand Slam events in a three year span. And he’s also the only player to have won both Wimbledon and the US open three years in a row. I'm not gonna list down the rest of the horde of records he has now. You can look it up yourself in Federer's wikipedia entry.

This guy is only 25 years and has already won 9 Grand Slams, placing him in 6th place overall behind Pete Sampras (14), Roy Emerson (12), Rod Laver (11), Bjorn Borg (11), and Bill Tilden (10). If he remains fit and healthy I see him breaking Sampras’ record within 3 years.

What’s more, even if Roger doesn’t play between now and February, he is en route to take Jimmy Connors’ 25 year old record of male player with most number of consecutive weeks at #1 at 160 weeks (that’s a smidge more than 3 full years in a row). What’s more, if he continues to play as well as he has been playing, he will take the record for number of consecutive weeks at #1 male or female, a record currently held by Steffi Graf. I would personally not want him to take Graf’s record but I really wouldn’t mind. Steffi would still have the female record if ever. =)