!Roger by Pete Bodo
It may not have been the prettiest of his Grand Slam wins, and it wasn't the one in which he mowed down the most formidable line-up of rivals; it didn't show Roger Federer at his most commanding, nor at his most relaxed. Where he once soared above the competition with nary the trace of a shadow on the court below, in this one he wrestled with seven different men on an empty plain, and by the end of almost every round the field of play lay splattered with perspiration; close your eyes and you can still hear the pig-like grunts of effort, the pleas for vindication forestalled, and the desperate exclamations marking all the small triumphs that eventually ran together as tributaries to form the great river of his triumph. Tonight, Roger Federer won his 13th Grand Slam, eradicating the hopes of first-time Grand Slam finalist Andy Murray, 6-2,7-5,6-2.
The scores make it look easy; it was anything but. This was the greatest of Federer's Grand Slam triumphs. His performance was essential and definitive, a tribute to his grit as a competitor. While he battled through just one match that tested him to the limits of his ability and endurance, this US Open title was his most hard-earned major, and those are the ones that the occupy a special place in the heart of the warrior. At this event, Federer was besieged in the most insidious way, because there is no enemy more crafty or ruthless than yourself. And often during this tournament, The Mighty Fed appeared to be fighting that foe, in addition to the man across the net.
Do you remember the Roger Federer of days gone bye, the young man with the pleasantly elastic face, clean look, and glossy hair? He might have been a boy-wonder stockbroker - the kind of decent dude you might meet and chat with over a glass of Chardonnay on a Friday night at a wine bar frequented by pretty young things. Where was that 27-year-old Roger Federer? I don't know about you, but the one I saw these past two weeks was more like the guy who would call you out in the cantina, reaching for his machete. Instead of well-tanned he looked dark, and his facial features often seemed to close in on themselves; what I often saw when I tried to gauge his thoughts was less a face than a pair of dark brows knitted in a chevron of repudiation: a rejection of his critics and all the doubts, perhaps even self doubts that, if they existed at all - and I'll be the first to admit I'm going out on a limb here - were repeating on him, the contents of the too-rich a meal that has been his career.
For the record, TMF has steadfastly maintained that he had suffered no great loss of confidence over the course of this troubled year, that whatever was wrong was situational rather than internal, explained by any number of things but the inevitable champion's fatigue. Yet how can a man not hear, even if he doesn't want to listen. Even as he insisted that nothing was wrong, as late as last night, he simultaneously seemed drawn to confession. It's a common impulse for anyone who is in denial. To me, Federer has been in denial, and there was a moment during the match (the mid-point of the second set) when it looked as if he would succumb to the truth others were suspecting, perceiving, and in some cases, gloating over: that his confidence was shot.
At the time, he was serving the fifth game, and tremors seemed to be creeping into his racket hand. At love-30, he was nicely set up for one of his trademark, whiplash forehand approach shots. And great as he is, and as often as he's executed that stroke flawlessly, this time he guided it - held back just enough to give Murray a good look at a passing shot, which Murray executed nicely to force Federer into a volleying error. Now, TMF was down love-40, and the dam behind which lay the enormous reservoir of his talent and achievements seemed to tremble and shake.
Federer survived the three subsequent break points, and he certainly got some help from a visually-challenged base-linesman on his way to the critical hold. Murray held the next game, so the effect of TMF's nervy comeback was manifest only at the end of the set, when the pressure to hold his service game at 5-6 proved too much for Murray.
TMF had come to the brink of something in that fifth game, and let's for the moment assume that it was the great, withheld reality of his recent struggles, that it was a basic truth come to confront him. At that point, Federer might have capitulated, and demonstrated that the critics were right. But a great player doesn't capitulate, it's the only real sin against his nature. Let others surrender to reality; let others conform to a seductive reality imposed by others. Champions don't need no stinkin' reality. What they need to do is clench their teeth and impose their will and sacrifice the lamb of reality on the altar of striving.
Not only do champions get away with this, it's precisely why we glorify them. And I'm not being entirely metaphorical here: they can do this because winning a tennis match - the game - is not only the most concrete form of reality, it's also the most narrow sliver of it. A player can't overcome the force of gravity, and he can't tell you the capital of Spain if he doesn't already know the answer. But a champion - a Pete Sampras or Jimmy Connors or Ivan Lendl or John McEnroe, instinctively understands that for those precious minutes on a tennis court, a reality much higher and more relevant than the truth of your emotional or even physical state is there to be created. It begs to be created. It challenges you to create it. When you're a champion, you make what reality you're man or woman enough to conjure up with the swing of a racket.
All this helps to explain how Federer could both hear and ignore the narrative imposed on his career these past few months, and slip into the role of the moth fleeing from the flame. As he said of his win, "I always knew that if I were to get one Slam under my belt, especially the last one, things weren't looking that bad like everybody was talking about. Anyway, I was always positive, like I mentioned before, and for this reason, I think this is really a great effort from my side, you know, to people saying I was under pressure. I didn't feel I was under pressure to prove myself in trying to win here, but this definitely feels very sweet, and I think it's key for this season, obviously."
A little later in this dialog with the press, he added: "No, I don't think it got to me (all the discussion about his slump), but I was aware of it. I mean, I'm a bit disappointed. Sometimes to a point a bit annoyed, because all sorts of crazy people started writing me and trying to reach me, telling me I need some help either mentally or physically." He was interrupted by laughter, and after a moment he continued: "You're laughing but it's the way it goes. People come out of closet and think they can start helping me now. It's just a pain. For me, this sort of puts them to rest a little bit, and calms down the phones at my parents' a little bit, which I'm happy about."
Can you imagine a more detatched, practical analysis of the situation, or one that so witheringly reduces the dimensions of TMF's heretofore towering problem? That this guy is some kind of genius is certain, although I'm no longer sure exactly what kind. My brain hurts just thinking about it, so how about we talk some good old-fashioned X's and O's?
Federer made an intriguing comment in his presser, near the tail end of a charitable paen to Murray's recent accomplishments. He said,"He's got many different opportunities to play any player, I think. That's what makes him dangerous. He's got the good slice, he can come to net, he can stay back, he can stay very far back. So he's got three different options, and not many players have that out there. For this reason you need to adapt a little bit on how he plays you. I think that's what I'm best at in the game, is try to figure out how to beat the guy. I had a game plan going in, but then also had to adjust it throughout the match."
This is what I read between the lines: I knew that he might try to chip and slice his way to the net, in which case I would have tried to beat him with great defense. But if he was going to stay way back, I was going to attack. He tried a little bit of both yesterday, even though he mostly stayed back . And when he did that, especially when he played from way back, I felt I could attack him."
For the record, Federer attacked the net 44 times - not a Sampras-grade number, but impressive in this era, and exactly four times as often as Murray came to net. Federer won 31 of those approaches, for an outstanding 70 percent success rate. Murray converted 64 percent, but you know that anyone who attacks the net only eleven times is mostly coming in on can't miss opportunities.
Now let's get back to that critical fifth game of the second set. In two of the break points, Murray might have called upon Hawkeye to confirm that a Federer groundstroke was out. Electronic replay on television conclusively showed that at least one of those shots was out. Granted, it's risky - and just plain difficult - to pull up in the middle of a rally and challenge. It's the last thing a player ought to be thinking about during a furious exchange.
