The Federer Era

The Cover Story, `Epic journeys to surpassing greatness' (Sportstar, February 10), was articulate as well as informative. Roger Federer is a great player no doubt. With the passage of time, his tennis skills and nous have made him razor sharp. His career graph has always been on the rise and he has, practically, made all surfaces, barring clay, his domain.

It won't be an exaggeration if one terms the present men's tennis scene as the `Era of Federer'. All the players now seem to be suffering from `Federer phobia'. However, drawing comparisons between Federer and Tiger Woods, the golfer extraordinaire, is totally unreasonable as they play two completely different games. Both are legends in their respective sport.

Arindam Basu, KolkataKudos to Serena

Hats off to Serena Williams. She entered the Australian Open without a major title against her name for more than a year. Nobody cared to look at her as a big threat to win the title but she proved what she is capable of. If she continues to maintain this level of play, I think she's going to be a big threat in all the major tournaments this year. I also salute the performance of Roger Federer who swept past his opponents to win the Open without dropping a set. He has taken his game to another level.

S. Asokan, Boulogne-Billancourt (France).Good move

The steps taken by the BCCI this year to honour the star performers in domestic cricket following the completion of the Ranji Trophy final are to be lauded. The formation of the `Shadow Indian Team' is a superb concept. It will go a long way in inspiring the good performers at the domestic level to strive to make it to the real Indian team. By strengthening domestic cricket with these creative methods we are actually laying the foundation for a strong Indian team of the future.

Duke Jonathan Jeyaraj, HyderabadThe ills of money power

This is with reference to the `Kicking Around' column, `Money isn't everything' (Sportstar, February 3). Chelsea and Real Madrid are two prime examples of clubs having `Money is everything' as their motto.

Squandering huge sums of money on the big boys of the game creates pandemonium in the clubs instead of bringing them success. It becomes nearly impossible for the coaches to manage the players in a proper and productive way. For that reason, highly talented players such as Andriy Shevchenko, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Michael Ballack are not even getting regular starts for Chelsea.

Roneet Mohanty, Bhubaneswar