There's a breeze swirling around the center court as the first semifinal begins at Indian Wells, but it isn’t bothering Roger Federer. He whips two quick forehand winners and finishes his first service game with an ace.
Federer and his opponent, Andy Murray, switch sides. In his own first service game, Murray takes a high forehand and, rather than trying to hit a winner or even a penetrating shot, lofts the ball a little higher than normal and places it a few inches closer to the baseline than the service line. He holds as well.
This is a match between artistic tennis players with very different approaches to their craft. The first two games provide microcosms of both. Federer's athletic shot-making and will to aggressively create has been the state of the art in the game for five years, the final word in tennis style. Murray, his equal as an athlete, is cerebral, restrained, tricky, and reactive by comparison.
Cerebral, restrained, tricky, yes, but is he really all that reactive? "There's more than way of dictating points," Murray says afterward. "It's not just going for big, booming serves and huge forehands. If you change the pace with the ball a lot, you know, and mix it up—I'm playing the match the way I want it to go. If I started trading ground strokes with someone like Federer, I think he likes that."
Through the first three games, Murray shows no desire or need to leave his perch behind the baseline. It's up to Federer to figure out how to break through those defenses. Federer tries to trade backhand slices with him briefly, to junk with the junker, but he's not consistent enough. When Federer does move forward, Murray, scuttling across the back of the court and eating up yards with his long strides, is inevitably there to make him play another volley or another overhead. Eventually, Federer misses those as well. Murray wins the first set 6-3.
The Scot is asked later whether he was the fastest kid at his school. "In a straight line, no," Murray says. There's laughter in the press room, but he isn't making a joke. Murray doesn't crack a smile through the entire interview, despite the fact that he's just beaten Roger Federer for the fourth straight time. "Since I played tennis, that was one of the things that I've always done very well, is have good anticipation. Over 100 meters I'm OK, not great."
Murray is anxious and edgy at the start of the second set. He shows his first negative emotions as he's broken in the first game, and a few minutes later lets out an almost girlish scream after flicking a forehand wide—"AhhnnndeeeEEE!"
"Roger, wake up!" someone yells from the highly pro-Federer crowd. This is as partisan as an audience gets at Indian Wells. The memory of Federer crying in Melbourne lingers. There's sympathy for the old king, a three-time champion here. The 22-year-old Murray has yet to inspire that kind of loyalty.
Federer sees his chance and begins to take it. The wind has died and the afternoon is at its hottest. From here until the beginning of the third set, Federer and Murray face off with their best, diametrically opposed, games.
What they produce is tense, stop-and-start tennis. Murray tries to disrupt and tie Federer in knots by hitting low and slow, taking pace off the ball, and changing trajectories with each shot. Federer tries to break free and get clean looks at forehands. Each shows off their peculiar genius. Murray twice waits an extra millisecond with his two-handed backhand and fools Federer by going down the line. Federer responds by snapping off two crosscourt forehand return winners, backpedals balletically and hops into another forehand winner, and hits an absurdly fine overhead from his own baseline into the opposite baseline corner and past Murray. He finishes the set with a backhand half-volley pickup from the baseline for another winner.
Federer's is the more high-flying and crowd-pleasing genius. But as Murray says, it isn't the only way to control a match. And it isn't the only one that can produce signature improvisatory moments. Returning at 2-1, Murray hits a short lob. As Federer sets up to drill it, Murray begins to run forward. He times it perfectly and blocks the reply past Federer on a short hop. He breaks and doesn't lose another game.
It's Federer's backhand that has held the key to this match. He missed it early, but had more success running around it in the second set. In the third, it collapses completely. "I think I played well in the second," Federer says in his press conference. Rather than wait the customary half an hour or so to come into the interview room, he has walked straight there from the court. He leans forward more than usual and answers tersely. "I forced the issue a bit more and then played a shocking third set."
There are three factors to consider about Federer's "shocking" third set. The first is the surface. It's always slow here, but according to some coaches and trainers, it's playing more slowly than ever. The winners today, Murray and Nadal, both have plenty of time to scramble and set up for passing shots. It's no accident that both of these guys have two-handed backhands; it's difficult even for Federer with his one-hander to generate the pace necessary to get the ball to jump through the court. The second factor is Federer at this stage of his career. Today he summoned his best tennis, his full-flight tennis, for a brief spell. But he couldn't sustain it against a young and hungry opponent. Will we see him at his best only in streaks from now on?
The third, and by far the most important element, is that younger opponent. Murray, like Nadal, is a hard guy for Federer to beat. The Scot, with his speed, anticipation, and very high shot tolerance, doesn't need to walk the same high wire as Federer. His genius is to reduce the game, to bring down to court level, to make the spectacular useless.
"He knows he doesn't need to play close to the lines," Federer says of Murray afterward, "because he knows he can cover the court really well. I think that calms him down mentally. I think that's why he's playing so well."
Murray spends much of the third set hitting dull slices and wobbly loops, only to come up with something 10 times better—a hook forehand crosscourt, a belted backhand down the line—once Federer gets to the net. It's rope-a-dope—or rope-a-Goat—tennis. Muhammad Ali named the tactic 35 years ago. Like him, Murray, a boxing aficionado, knows that it's an offensive tactic disguised as defense. And from the beginning of his press conference today, he wants everyone to know that he won this match, Federer didn't lose it.
"As long as I'm playing the match on my terms," Murray says when asked if he's surprised by Federer's collapse, "and I'm getting the ball in the position that I want to get it in and making him play difficult shots, then [I'm not surprised]."
Murray finishes by suggesting something I've never heard suggested in a press conference by another player: That Federer didn’t play a smart match.
"He was running around a lot," he said, "and playing very sort of low-percentage shots. When you're doing that, you're going to make mistakes."
There is no awe for Roger Federer in those words, none of the usual caveats about how, no matter what happened today, he's still "the greatest player in history." There's nothing but a shrug from Murray that told us, It was all in the plan, why are you surprised?
As Murray says, there's more than one way to dictate a point. There's more than one way win a fight. There's more than one way for a tennis artist to paint a match.