Win 16 grand slam titles, and we begin to assume you might just be good at tennis.
Reach 33 consecutive grand slam quarter-finals, as has Roger Federer, and we hardly know what to think.
Really, to go from the 2004 French Open third round against the clay-mighty Gustavo Kuerten all the way to now and seemingly towards forever without ever so much as tripping up once, just once …
Novak Djokovic once lost a French Open third round to Philipp Kohlschreiber … Pete Sampras once lost a US Open fourth round to Petr Korda … Boris Becker once lost a US Open second round to Darren Cahill … John McEnroe once lost a US Open fourth round to Bill Scanlon …
In the grand parade of pre-quarter-final exits, some big shots lose to names that make you nod and think, OK, that could happen.
Andre Agassi once lost a Wimbledon fourth round to Todd Martin … Stefan Edberg once lost a US Open fourth round to Aaron Krickstein … Becker once lost a French Open first round to Goran Ivanisevic … Sampras once lost an Australian third round to Mark Philippousis … Djokovic once lost a Wimbledon second round to Marat Safin …
Some stars lose to names you remember but which don't tend to come up in conversation.
Ivan Lendl once lost a Wimbledon fourth round to Henri Leconte … Edberg once lost a French Open fourth round to Guillermo Perez-Roldan … McEnroe once lost a US Open first round to Paul Annacone … Sampras once lost a French Open third round to Magnus Norman … Edberg once lost a US Open first round to Alexander Volkov …
And some stars lose to names that still sound like it didn't really happen.
Nadal just lost a Wimbledon second round to Lukas Rosol … Sampras once lost a French Open first round to Gilbert Schaller … McEnroe once lost a French Open first round to Horacio de la Pena … Becker once lost a Wimbledon second round to Pete Doohan … Sampras once lost a Wimbledon second round to George Bastl …
Some stars go through the drastic phases that mark many human lives, so their losses make sense at the time.
Agassi once lost a French Open first round to Safin, a French Open second round to Thomas Muster, a Wimbledon second round to Tommy Haas … Jimmy Connors once reached 27 straight grand slam quarter-finals, the record before Federer. The understatedly amazing Lendl reached 27 grand slam quarter-finals from the 1982 US Open to the 1990 Wimbledon while falling shy only twice. The great Bjorn Borg played 20 slams from the 1975 French Open to the 1981 US Open, won 10 of them, reached five other finals and missed only one quarter-final. Still …
Still, Connors lost a 1983 Wimbledon fourth round to the scary-serving Kevin Curren … Lendl lost a 1984 Australian Open fourth round to the scary-serving Kevin Curren and that 1985 Wimbledon fourth round to Leconte … Borg lost a 1977 US Open fourth round to Dick Stockton.
It happens.
Well, almost always.
Clouds permitting, Roger Federer will play a Wimbledon quarter-final today against Mikhail Youzhny. Simply by walking out there, Federer will remind us he is not only a great player but a great survivor.
He will have come through 33 first weeks all the way across eight years and 132 first-week matches against people very good at tennis by any normal standard. In all those 132 he will have played rising stars and falling stars, players who can beat most anybody on any given day, players who couldn't do a thing against him, players who scared his fans, famous players, less-famous players, anonymous players who might make lightning bolts because everybody has a bad day.
Well, almost everybody.
Win 16 grand slams, you're a great player, but reach 33 straight quarter-finals, you're something else, so here's Federer, survivor again last Friday night from two sets down against Julien Benneteau, as with Haas at the 2009 French or Alejandro Falla at Wimbledon 2010.
Survive that much and soon, somebody points out that the match on Friday gave Federer 5,459 games won in grand slams, besting Andre Agassi's 5,438, a record of such extreme trivia that it led Federer to a series of skilful wisecracks, including, "I thought playing longer might make me really break it."
Survive that much, and the very exacting task of withstanding all manner of ball-bashing humanity to reach the Broadway part of every tournament seems somehow expected, almost mundane. Federer is in a Wimbledon quarter-final. We have come to think it among the most reliable parts of life.
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WHAT FANS WILL LOVE ABOUT RUSSIA
FANS WILL LOVE
Uber is ridiculously cheap and, as Diego Saez discovered, mush safer. A 45-minute taxi from Pulova airport to Saint Petersburg’s Nevsky Prospect can cost as little as 500 roubles (Dh30).
FANS WILL LOATHE
Uber policy in Russia is that they can start the fare as soon as they arrive at the pick-up point — and oftentimes they start it even before arriving, or worse never arrive yet charge you anyway.
FANS WILL LOVE
It’s amazing how active Russians are on social media and your accounts will surge should you post while in the country. Throw in a few Cyrillic hashtags and watch your account numbers rocket.
FANS WILL LOATHE
With cold soups, bland dumplings and dried fish, Russian cuisine is not to everybody’s tastebuds. Fortunately, there are plenty Georgian restaurants to choose from, which are both excellent and economical.
FANS WILL LOVE
The World Cup will take place during St Petersburg's White Nights Festival, which means perpetual daylight in a city that genuinely never sleeps. (Think toddlers walking the streets with their grandmothers at 4am.)
FANS WILL LOATHE
The walk from Krestovsky Ostrov metro station to Saint Petersburg Arena on a rainy day makes you wonder why some of the $1.7 billion was not spent on a weather-protected walkway.
Dirham Stretcher tips for having a baby in the UAE
Selma Abdelhamid, the group's moderator, offers her guide to guide the cost of having a young family:
• Buy second hand stuff
They grow so fast. Don't get a second hand car seat though, unless you 100 per cent know it's not expired and hasn't been in an accident.
• Get a health card and vaccinate your child for free at government health centres
Ms Ma says she discovered this after spending thousands on vaccinations at private clinics.
• Join mum and baby coffee mornings provided by clinics, babysitting companies or nurseries.
Before joining baby classes ask for a free trial session. This way you will know if it's for you or not. You'll be surprised how great some classes are and how bad others are.
• Once baby is ready for solids, cook at home
Take the food with you in reusable pouches or jars. You'll save a fortune and you'll know exactly what you're feeding your child.
The biog
Family: He is the youngest of five brothers, of whom two are dentists.
Celebrities he worked on: Fabio Canavaro, Lojain Omran, RedOne, Saber Al Rabai.
Where he works: Liberty Dental Clinic
Founders: Abdulmajeed Alsukhan, Turki Bin Zarah and Abdulmohsen Albabtain.
Based: Riyadh
Offices: UAE, Vietnam and Germany
Founded: September, 2020
Number of employees: 70
Sector: FinTech, online payment solutions
Funding to date: $116m in two funding rounds
Investors: Checkout.com, Impact46, Vision Ventures, Wealth Well, Seedra, Khwarizmi, Hala Ventures, Nama Ventures and family offices
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
