Baby, 18 year old, who yet couldn’t buy a beer, in diapers nadal started to beat federer back in 04-05, even on hard courts.
I have to intervene here. Alcohol is legal in eastern Europe from 18y old so technically Novak could go to a store and buy a Jack Daniels.
Alcohol drinking around our area is often encouraged by the male parent who tells you to be a man when you are about 7 years old and pours some wine to your orange juice. Buying a liquor was never a problem for us at any age, as long as it sells doesn't matter who buys, you just say it is for my old man or we have some guests if it's more than usual.
So they would send you to the local supermarket to which you walk like 100 meters and you buy some salami and cheese and usually the beer. You would bring the old and empty 0.5 liter glass bottles and you would state you presence to the cashier lady like look I am putting here 6 bottles and she would later still ask you did you bring the bottles, because bottles were important and you could get a good credit for just an empty bottle and if you didn't bring the bottle the beer was like 30% more expensive. Sometimes we would cheat, we brought 3 bottles but bought 5.
Do you know that we now have people living off just collecting the plastic and can bottles? You also get credit for those, but much less than the glass bottles before. People always drink outside in certain areas around the town, nevermind summer or winter and there are these folks just going around and asking you is your bottle empty. You look at you bottle and say sorry man come back in 10 minutes, then another guy picks it up because the other one couldn't wait, there was more to collect. Sometimes they stay just to get that bottle and stare at you until you pass it to them. It's bizarre.
Point is, Novak made a long way to become a hero. This is not Switzerland nor Spain. People really struggle and his wins make people so proud and it is something to cheer for, something bright and positive, not corrupt. It is hard to describe, but just imagine if people struggle with money all the time and live on the edge of providing for their loved ones and some guy like Novak comes and wins what he won so far. It puts smile on people face, they become so proud and see part of them in him and they live for that moment of happiness when he beats another guy in the major final. It gets very emotional.