When Roger Federer tries to win an unprecedented fifth consecutive US Open title on the blue-and-green floor of Arthur Ashe stadium today, he'll be exchanging forehand missiles and artful drop shots with Andy Murray, a player as different from Rafael Nadal as a sledgehammer is from an ice pick. Both instruments can be lethal, but they kill in vastly different ways. So the first item on the world no. 2's to-do list is to brace himself, mentally and technically, for a match with fewer sharp contrasts and a less clear set of hypotheticals than he would have had with Nadal across the net. Matches between Federer and Nadal tend to be painted in primary colors, but this final is more likely to be presented in pastels.
It isn't so much that Federer and Murray have similar games; Murray, the 21-year old Scot, uses a two-handed backhand, Federer relies on a the classic one-hander. Federer is a spectacular shotmaker whose game is often framed as a dare: here's what I can do with the ball, now show me what you've got! Murray is a human quagmire, luring his victims into a form of tennis poker. He ups the ante bit-by-bit, pushes a little here, probes a little there, feels out the point and, finally, when he's good and ready, he shows his hand with a blazing placement or a sneak attack on the net.
At times - and Murray's quarterfinal battle with Juan Martin Del Potro was a vivid example of this - Murray seems to be merely treading water, half-attentively playing a passive game seemingly to no greater end than to determine who gets bored and makes an error first. But the key thing is that he isn't usually the one who flubs it. I've seen Andy Murray suck a lot of guys into this kind of game, and often they become mesmerized until they suddenly come to the realization: Holy crap, I'm down 4-5, 15-40 - how the hail did I get into this mess?
You might think that Federer would be immune to Murray's penchant for the sucker punch, but the record is surprising: Murray's only lost to Federer once, and that was way back in 2006, when Murray was just a conspicuously talented kid who had no idea of the degree of work it takes to be a Top Five player and Grand Slam finalist. Since then, Murray has played Federer twice, and won both times. The spectrum of players who are nemises for Federer is very narrow, with Nadal at one end and Murray at the other.
To make the challenge for Federer even more compelling, no top player has made as much conspicuous progress in his game over the past 12 months as Murray. He presented the evidence on Ashe yesterday, as he marched out before a packed house on a sunshot afternoon to the epic guitar volleys that open The Who's Baba O'reily (you know, the song your terminally un-hip former college buddy still thinks is called Teenage Wasteland).
Of course, Murray was already leading Nadal by two sets to none, with Nadal up a break at 3-2 in the fourth. That's because the match had been postponed at that stage by rain on Saturday. Up to that point, Murray had produced 44 winners (including service) to Nadal's 19, and he had an 80 percent winning percentage on first serves (compared to Nadal's 61). Anyone watching that match saw that he was, simply, on fire. Halting the match while Murray was on a roll was useful (if not to Murray), because how he handled the interruption would be telling.
