If you wanted to show the people of the future what a typical set by Roger Federer looked like, you could do worse than boxing up a recording of his first one today against Janko Tipsarevic in London and stuffing it in the proverbial time capsule. It had all of the hallmarks.
There was the blink-and-you-missed-it love hold in the opening service game, which included two service winners and an ace. As Tennis Channel commentator Jimmy Arias noted, Federer is the master of the one-minute hold to start a match, because (a) he’s good; and (b) his opponent is facing Roger Federer and is bound to be a little jumpy. This time Federer went one step farther in the fast start department, breaking Tipsarevic in the next game with two vintage plays: A chip-and-charge volley winner at deuce, and a short backhand slice followed by a backhand pass at break point.
From there, the set unfolded as so many other Federer sets have. He controlled the baseline and kept Tipsarevic from getting his feet set. He wrong-footed him, once with the forehand and once with the backhand, for winners. While he didn’t have the first-serve percentage he might have wanted—51 percent of the day—he found that shot when he needed it, hitting an ace for 5-2 and two aces to close the set. While Federer's first set stats weren’t stunning—he hit 12 winners and made nine errors—on the whole he looked at home again in the O2 Arena, and as springy and proactive as we’ve come to expect. The London crowd also responded in the way we've come to expect, with roars for every winner and calls of "Come on, King." I guess Maestro just won't do anymore.
The second set? It was even better. Federer broke at 1-1 when Tipsarevic drilled a forehand into the net. The Serb, under pressure, often pressed too much in return. There were few of the long, varied, athletic exchanges we’ve seen when these two have played in the past. Federer broke again at 3-1 with a forehand winner, though that game included his only notable lapse of the day, a poorly chosen, and casually executed, backhand drop shot on a return of serve that Tipsy punished.
Federer’s 6-3, 6-1 win came, as so many of them do these days, with a couple of milestones: He broke Ivan Lendl’s record for most wins at this event, with 40; and he passed John McEnroe on the all-time ATP wins list, with 876. Federer also jumps out to a big early lead in his group, with 12 games won and only four surrendered.
This, people of the future, is pretty much how it went when Roger Federer played tennis.