MELBOURNE—Great players win when they need to win. Yes, we know this, but Roger Federer took the concept to extremes in the first set of his first-round match against Alex Kudryavtsev today at the Australian Open.
For 11 games, Federer rallied with the 26-year-old Russian currently ranked No. 172 in the world. Gone was the aggressive, net-rushing Federer from the summer of 2011, as well as the shot-maker we saw during the indoor season. In his place was a Federer playing the hard-working, heavy-effort tennis you normally expect on a slower Aussie hard court.
The two players traded baseline ground strokes to 6-5. Kudryavtsev had saved a set point at 4-5, before Federer held. At 6-5, 0-15, though, everything changed and Federer picked up speed. He began by making his first fully aggressive move of the set by running around and drilling a second serve return for a winner. On the next point he let fly with a looping backhand down the line for another winner. On his second set point, Federer again, as if there were really nothing to it, ran around and smacked a disdainful forehand directly at his opponent, who could only bunt it back into the net. That was the set.
It was largely clean-up work from there for Federer. By the middle of the second set he was up a break and had loosened up a bit. He looked for his inside-out forehand more and eventually began to move forward, winning 16 points at the net for the match. Kudryavtsev, despite never seeming to believe he was in it, made him work. The sure-handed Russian takes the ball on the rise and goes for broke whenever possible and as early possible, and he forced Federer to defend. But that was all he could do. When AK earned a break point at 1-1 in the second set, he got a look at a backhand return and badly overhit it.
Federer made 63 percent of first serves, hit 43 winners versus 36 errors, and never lost control of the proceedings. But the most important stat of the night belonged to Kudryavtsev: He made just 42 percent of his first serves. Whatever you do with your ground strokes or your returns, beating Roger Federer with that kind of service percentage is hard to imagine. If the match tells us anything about Federer’s future at this event, it’s that, as he said in his pre-tournament presser, he doesn’t believe quick one-two combinations and an emphasis on aggressive shotmaking are the answer on these courts. Of course, it also could have been the unfamiliarity of the opponent. Federer didn’t think he had ever even seen Kudryavtsev play before today. He scouted him on the Internet.
The suspense level of this 7-5, 6-2, 6-2 match can be summed up by Federer’s reaction when he was finally broken for 2-3 in the third set. On the first point of his opponent’s next service game, he hit a drop shot return for a winner. On the next point, Federer faked a forehand drop shot and whipped a squash-style shovel shot up the line for 0-30.
Now that’s how you respond to being broken: You come out and toy with the guy.
—Steve Tignor
