Tennismania ousts soccer as Colombians win Wimbledon doubles

Tennis pushed soccer aside as Colombia’s major sport’s interest on the weekend after a Colombian duo won the men’s doubles title at Wimbledon on Saturday .  with praise raining in from the country’s president, the tennis federation and hordes of social media followers who likely have never held a tennis racket.

Colombia raised Juan Sebastián Cabal and Robert Farah  to the status of national heroes as they reached “the Olympus of tennis”,

President Ivan Duque  said: ”This is “something historic, something very important for our country (…) Here we will be waiting for you,” in a short video posted on Twitter

The FCT catapulted them to the “Olympus of tennis” in one of its first reactions on Twitter,.

“The best day in the history of Colombian tennis has arrived, the golden pages of this sport already have the best chapter ever written,” said the Federation, practically exhausting epithets to salute the achievement.

Cabal and Farah won the first Grand Slam for Colombia and from Monday will be “the new numbers one in the world, a position never before reached by a Colombian professional,” said the Federation.

“WE’RE NOT CRYING! We got a title in our eyes,” wrote the newspaper El Tiempo on its  Twitter account before inviting readers to send them a message

The pair of 33 and 32 years, respectively, came to glory after a match of five hours played in five sets, the first four with a tie-break.

The Colombians ended up winning  6-7 (5/7), 7-6 (7/5), 7-6 (8/6), 6-7 (5/7) and 6-3 when the night was already falling at the All England Club 

Farah is the son of Lebanese immigrants who was born in Montreal, Canada, while his partner is a native of Cali, the third city of Colombia, where both became friends and began their sports career.

Although they played together from an early age, it was only in 2011 that they decided to forego their individual ambitions and start their career in doubles.