Still Lean, Still Hungry

The lob from Guillermo Garcia-Lopez’s racquet flew high into the sky above Monte Carlo. When it came down, it would present the first big test of Roger Federer’s one-hour-old comeback.

A few minutes earlier, Federer had held what appeared to be an insurmountable 6-3, 5-1 lead over the Spaniard. In his first match since undergoing knee surgery in February, Federer looked lean, hungry and spry. While most of us grow progressively and unfortunately larger with age, Federer keeps slimming down. With his hair similarly clipped, he looked as trim and wiry as he ever has.

He also moved just as fast. As always, Federer played with a bracing, no-time-to-waste quickness between points and didn’t sacrifice any of his customary aggressiveness on the slower surface. He ran around his backhand and went after his forehand whenever he had a chance. He served and volleyed with steady success. He pushed Garcia-Lopez wide with his kick. He saved a break point in the first set with a brave backhand down the line that dropped into the corner for a winner. And it took just six games before he let out a “Come on!” after a winning point.

Yet as Federer saw Garcia-Lopez’s lob begin its descent, he suddenly found himself under pressure to come up with a difficult shot. Serving for the match at 5-2, Federer had played an overly safe game and been broken. Now, serving for it again at 5-4, Federer had watched as Garcia-Lopez put a running backhand pass on the line to go up 15-30. If Federer didn’t stick this overhead, the Spaniard would be a point away from improbably leveling the second set at 5-5. But Federer did stick it, perhaps a little closer to the back corner than he intended, but with more than enough pace to win the point. A minute or so later, the match was his as well.

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“The knee felt really good, like in practice,” Federer said. “Felt like I didn’t have to worry about it. I could just go freely ... I think in a way it was the perfect match. It was close in the beginning, then I was able to go on a roll. Points were cut short by virtue of me serving better and returning better, getting second serves, taking advantage of that fact.”

As smooth and familiar as Federer made his return appear, it still came at an odd moment in his season. When the year began, before he tore his meniscus, he had planned to skip Monte Carlo and the rest of the clay-court tune-up tournaments to concentrate his attention on the later events—Wimbledon, the Olympics and the U.S. Open—that mean the most to him, and where he has the best chances of success. After being forced to miss Indian Wells and Miami, though, Federer added Monte Carlo back, but he hasn’t put either Madrid or Rome on his schedule yet. As he said on Sunday, this week is about getting the “feel” and moving on from there. It’s about Federer the tennis player wanting to play tennis again.

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“I think I got what I needed,” said Federer, who has never won the Monte Carlo title. “So we’ll see how I feel tomorrow, tonight, the next day ... At this point I’m pretty confident I’ll feel fine.”

Coming back after an extended period away is an unfamiliar feeling for Federer, who has spent precious little time on the sidelines over the course of his career; from 2006 to 2013, he was mostly injury free. Could this setback, provided his knee doesn’t act up, ultimately work to his advantage? Could it leave him fresher for the late-season events he was prioritizing all along? Time will tell; on Thursday, a tougher test against Roberto Bautista Agut, another Spaniard, awaits.

For now, the Federer experience remains unchanged. The only things that looked new or odd on him were his black sneakers. Like every Nike athlete this week, his came stamped with the numbers 4/13/16, the date of NBA star Kobe Bryant’s last game. While his Nike stablemate is calling it quits at 37, Federer is starting over once again at 34. Maybe he should change the number on those shoes to 4/12/16, a date when he quieted the speculation about his own retirement once again.