On Wednesday, Federer commanded a football stadium much like Tom Brady

MIAMI—Roger Federer and Tom Brady, fellow sporting methuselahs, have been compared to each other for years. But the Miami Open has given us a rare chance to see one of them perform on the other’s turf.

Brady has been coming to this city to lead his New England Patriots against the Miami Dolphins for nearly 20 years; oddly, though, it’s one of the few places in the NFL where his teams have struggled. Over the last week, we’ve had a chance to see Federer do his own thing inside the Dolphins’ home field, Hard Rock Arena. Judging by his thorough and convincing, 62-minute, 6-4, 6-2 win over Daniil Medvedev on Wednesday, Federer may already be more comfortable here than Brady ever will be.

How does Federer look at the center of a 65,000-seat football stadium? The press seats here are roughly where the 50-yard line would be; like a lot of other seats in the arena, though, they sit far back from the tennis court. You might think that wouldn’t be ideal, but it ends up offering a different perspective on the Federer form. From that distance, it was easy to see, for instance, the long, low-to-high arc of his one-handed backhand, and the flexible follow-through he can still get at 37. Watching Federer mix that shot up against Medvedev today—from slice to drive to drop shot to volley—was what I imagine it’s like watching Brady mix screen passes with deep balls as he drives down toward the end zone.

I’ve written in the past that Medvedev can be a riddle to his opponents, a Miloslav Mecir for the power age. At 6’6,” he blends a bomb serve with rangy defense that he deploys from well behind the baseline. In his first meeting with Federer, in Shanghai last year, Medvedev used that unusual combination well enough to take a set. But Federer began to get the hang of the Medvedev muddle soon after in Basel. Today, it was the Swiss, rather than the Russian, who presented the unsolvable riddles to his opponent.

(Anita Aguilar)

Medvedev’s serve alone was enough to keep him in the first set, but aside from that, it was Federer’s tactical proactivity that ruled the day. He made key returns, and put them in difficult positions for Medvedev. He didn’t make many unforced errors. He exploited Medvedev’s deep position by commanding the middle of the court and running him from corner to corner. He served and volleyed his way out of trouble.

With Medvedev serving at 4-4, Federer varied the rallies just enough—with a drop shot on one point and a series of slices on another—to disrupt his rhythm and break. When he went down 0-40 while serving for the set at 5-4, Federer bounced back to win five straight points. Whether he was chipping the ball low on returns, or flicking over it for winning passes, Federer’s backhand looked especially clean today.

If there were any worries about how he would bounce back from a tough final-round defeat to Dominic Thiem at Indian Wells, Federer has banished them. He’s into the quarterfinals, where he’ll face Kevin Anderson. And if there were any doubts about his continued relevance in 2019, he has dispelled those over the last three weeks as well. In January, when he lost to Stefanos Tsitsipas at the Australian Open, the defeat came as a surprise, but there also seemed to be an inevitability to it. Tsitsipas is 20 and rising, while Federer is...not 20. Two months later, though, it looks like yet another blip on the Big 3 radar screen. Federer turned the table on Tsitsipas in the Dubai final, and out-performed him in Indian Wells and Miami.

For Federer, just like for Tom Brady, decline never seems inevitable for long.