Roger Federer is one of the most gracious and likable athletes to have performed before mass audiences. He is a paragon of sportsmanship: polite toward his opponents, respectful of officials, joyous but self-effacing in victory, disappointed but complimentary in rare defeat. We come to root for dominant sportsmen because we’re thrilled to witness their achievements; we crave astonishment and eat it up when it’s served. But there has been extra reason to root for Federer: He wields his singular skill with humility. He has won 17 major tennis tournaments, the most of any male, and baffled some of the world’s most exceptional competitors. But each time he’s done it, particularly after finals, he’s disarmingly expressed the same amazement we all have—I don’t know how I do it, either—as if to intentionally avoid the appearance of arrogance.
It’s okay, Roger. We’ve all celebrated your cruelty.
But Federer, now 35, has depreciated in the latter stages of his career. He has not won a major since 2012, and he has been surpassed in the present by Novak Djokovic, the world’s number one, and the Scot Andy Murray, who has captured two Wimbledon championships since Federer secured his last. Federer has also been slowed by injury this year and did not appear in New York City for the U.S. Open, meaning he did not make the final of a major during a calendar year for only the second time since 2003. The last two men remaining in the Open draw, Djokovic and Stan Wawrinka—a two-time major-winner, world number three, and owner of one of tennis’s all-time great shots, his utterly aesthetic and consistent one-handed backhand—will do battle for the title Sunday. It should be a good match.
But it’s unlikely to produce some of the gawk-inducing moments Federer has gifted on these grounds: the Swiss’s adoptive home from 2004-08, even more than the lawn in London. He won the Open each year in that stretch, the last of which was a cathartic and reassuring victory after losing Wimbledon to Rafael Nadal in what is widely considered the greatest match in the history of tennis.
Federer did some customarily unreasonable things at the Open in that stretch. In ’04, he bageled (won a set 6-0 against) former world number one Lleyton Hewitt twice … in the final. In ’05, he took Andre Agassi’s best and practically last shots in one of the stiffest tests he faced during his reign as champ, overcoming a set-a-piece tie and trailing a break in the third to win 6-3, 2-6, 7-6, 6-1. Agassi pummeled his inimitable ground strokes in this match, dictating tempo by taking the ball early and on the rise. Only one guy on the planet could’ve beaten him that day. We saw who it was. In ’06, Federer fought off another American, Andy Roddick, after splitting the first two sets, just as he did with Agassi the year before.
It was the next year in which we saw just how relentless Federer could be. In Jonathan Last’s excellent tribute to Roddick, Last mentions the 2007 quarterfinal rematch between the two, in which Roddick “went at Federer with a ferocity I’d never seen on a tennis court, before or since.” Roddick had lost to Federer in a major final each of the last three years, and still he wasn’t cowed. But it only takes one point in this contest to show how determination and, yes, exceptional talent weren’t enough to overcome the peerless Federer in the middle of his dominion over tennis.
The situation is this: It’s 6 games to 6 in the first set and it’s the first point of the tiebreak. Federer serves once before he alternates two serves at a time with Roddick until one of them reaches seven points, win-by-two. In tennis, winning a game on the opponent’s serve is called a “break”; in a tiebreak, winning a point on the opponent’s serve is called a “mini break.” (“Bar” and “mini bar” is an acceptable analog, since it is the weekend, after all.) For Roddick, a single mini break could win him a set. So bankable was his serve that seizing the early lead in a tiebreak oftentimes resigned his opponents to hoping for better luck next time.
Shot by shot, here’s how great Roddick was—and here’s how unflappable, nay, unbeatable Federer was in response:
First. Federer hits a solid serve to Roddick’s forehand, stretching the American off the court. But Roddick, with a short swing, wallops the return hard and deep to Federer’s backhand.
This is a winning shot. Notice where the ball is in relation to Federer’s feet and keep in mind the shot’s pace. There is virtually zero time for Federer to react. Making contact with the ball would be an accomplishment.
Of course, because this is Roger Federer, he doesn’t scurry to the ball—he pivots counter-clockwise on his left foot to his backhand side and takes one massive step with his right foot toward the ball, fully extends his racket, and somehow gets enough on his return—enough string and enough force—to hit it all the way back to Roddick’s baseline.
This is the first impossible incident in this point.
Second. Roddick himself barely has time to react to Federer getting a return in play. He doesn’t approach the net, and with good reason: For one, the ball is at an awkward height, not suitable for a volley and too hot for an overhead smash. And there’s all of a second and a half between the time Roddick hammers his return and Federer’s stab crosses the net. It’s not like Roddick can sleep on his decision. The ball is coming in so high and so deep, anyway, that there’s a chance it will sail long. Roddick monitors it and steps backward to set up his forehand, his more powerful wing, in case it falls in bounds. It does.
He’s able to maintain his influence on the point by striking a decent shot to Federer’s backhand. But Federer sends his reply with some mustard, forcing Roddick onto his back foot, again on his forehand side.
Third. Here, Roddick hits another monster shot, though subtly. It’s a heavy, deep ball, coming in relatively flat compared to his typical topspin ground stroke, made all the more impressive because he hits it with no forward momentum. It forces Federer way behind the baseline, and Federer’s return this time is nowhere near as deep. Look how Roddick is further into the court now, opening angles for him to take control of the point, and how he steps into the ball:
Fourth. Roddick takes the tougher but surer route: an inside-out forehand to Federer’s backhand. And he bashes it.
Remember how the ball on Federer’s previous save was about to be parallel to his feet and he was almost half a court away? At least Roddick’s return that time was up the line and Federer was completely on balance to react. This time, Roddick’s shot is angled away from the Federer backhand, and because Federer is so far off the court, it’s going to be even tougher to cut off the ball. There is no way Stretch Armstrong, let alone Roger Federer, should be able to get the frame of the racket on this shot.
Fifth. And Federer doesn’t.
Instead, pliably, he gets the sweet spot on the ball, and—with absolutely no power coming from his legs—he flicks it to the feet of a hard-charging Roddick, which is a textbook play … for someone who is in a position to make the play. This play did not come from a textbook.
This is the second impossible incident in this point.
Sixth. Roddick’s feet say he’s stunned. He was barreling toward the net, but Federer’s shot throws him off so much that he has to abruptly halt his advance at the back of the service box. In such close proximity and with no momentum, he can’t get much on whatever shot he chooses to hit. He goes with a slice—a smart play to at least keep the ball low.
Seventh. But the slice is relatively shallow. It’s to the ad side of the court—Federer’s backhand—where Federer is already standing. Federer only needs one look.
And the point is over.
“That’s unbelievable,” says John McEnroe, one of the three match commentators on TV. What follows is a gumbo of chuckling, grunting something from the broadcast booth—judge the noise for yourself, but whatever it is, it is not English, and it is not intelligible. It is speechless.
That Federer won this single rally does not prove his greatness, no more than a swished 35-foot heave from NBA star Stephen Curry proves his. It’s that Federer’s skill was capable of producing the point. At one time, a one-handed, reflexive, wristy backhand at 100 percent stretch to the feet of an attacking volleyer was, seriously, part of Roger Federer’s plentiful arsenal. For all the nicknames in the world and Federer’s nationality, it’s shocking no one ever called him the Swiss army knife, at least according to Google.
Maybe it was just too easy, the way the game seemed to come to Roger.
