With his silky-smooth voice, the public address announcer milked the pre-match introduction of Roger Federer for all it was worth before the Swiss’ third-round match with Janko Tipsarevic today. He recited all of Federer’s Grand Slam victories, but instead of saying, for example, that he won five Wimbledons from 2003 to 2007, he enumerated every single year. He did likewise for the four Australian Open and the five U.S. Open titles. You could feel the crowd’s amusement grow as the years kept coming, one after another. Then it was the French Open, and though there was only one year mentioned, 2009, it got a rousing cheer.
The crowd favorite didn’t disappoint once the match began, using the ideal formula of breaking early and then serving out each of the three sets to win, 6-1, 6-4, 6-3.
Winning matches efficiently has been a constant of Federer’s career, and the fact that he routinely dispenses with opponents so quickly has surely increased his tennis longevity. Other top players often get involved in convoluted early-round encounters, but rarely Federer. And he does it without any of the contrived animosity toward his opponent that players like Jimmy Connors needed to get themselves motivated.
Right from the get-go on Court Suzanne Lenglen, Federer was light on his feet and eager to react to whatever Tipsarevic might have to offer. It paid off with a service break in the third game of the match, as Tipsarevic set the stage with some unforced errors before Federer swooped in for the break with a backhand volley winner. He got another break to lead 5-1, and then came the usual murmurs you hear from French Open spectators when they come to the collective realization that this is going to be a disappointing, one-sided affair.
While that consensus proved accurate, the match did have some entertaining rallies because both players fall into the shotmaker category. But Tipsarevic only had one break point—trailing 2-3 in the second set—and Federer saved it with one of his 10 aces on the day. The stats were all sound for Federer: a winners to unforced errors ratio of 37 to 20, 84 percent of first-serve points won and 56 percent success on second-serve points.
In the very last game, Federer provided one final flourish, making a slight hesitation move before cleverly guiding a down-the-line forehand winner off a drop shot from Tipsarevic. One Swiss journalist described the performance as like “the Federer of old,” which he will hope to be when he plays either Jo-Wilfried Tsonga or Stanislas Wawrinka in the round-of-16 on Sunday.
—Tom Tebbutt