Roger Federer, 36 years old, looked worried. After having a big lead—just three games away from winning the Australian Open—he slipped, and slipped badly. First he was tied up. Then he fell behind. Then, improbably, Marin Cilic won the fourth set.
The fifth set was one of those nerve-racking affairs in which it looked like Federer might finally show his age, like he might run out of fuel against a 6-foot-6 and 29-year-old, as he did against Juan Martin del Potro in the U.S. Open quarterfinals in September. After beating Cilic easily in the first set, the match was close throughout, with Cilic becoming more aggressive and Federer, at times, becoming tentative. When Federer lost five games in a row, Cilic looked confident and eager.
By now you know what happened the rest of the way: Federer, giving all the power he could find, won a close service game at the start of the fifth set and then sprinted to victory, 6-2, 6-7(5), 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 in just over three hours.
The last two weeks in Melbourne have been one more data point in establishing that there’s no one like Federer in the history of men’s tennis. He escaped his nerves. He escaped some trouble with his serve. He held on, and then, after being given the trophy, he cried. He now has 20 Grand Slam titles, a remarkable number that, more than likely, no other man will reach. All this on a day when Federer said he feared that he would lose.
“You can’t explain it sometimes,” Federer said. “It is just a feeling you get.”
This match makes Federer’s 20 Grand Slam titles even more impressive. Winning tournaments is complicated. It takes an enormous amount of effort and some luck, too. Anything can go wrong in a given match. You can get injured, your opponent can be having a career day. Federer has lost 10 Grand Slam finals, some of them excruciatingly close (with the 2008 Wimbledon loss to Rafael Nadal, at the top of the list). When you’re in a final, you can’t help but think, “This is a chance I might not get again.” It’s a complex feeling, even for Federer.
That’s what struck me the most about this final and it’s what impresses me most. After his fourth-set collapse, Federer maintained enough energy and confidence to go from tight to dominant in the final set. He hit the ball with precision and intelligence and didn’t let his nerves tighten his strokes. It was a lot like Federer in the Australian Open final last year, when he came back from a 3-1 deficit in the final set against Nadal.
Federer will try to win more Grand Slam titles. And as crazy as it seems, he just might do it. But if he doesn’t, that’s okay, too. In all his career, there has never been a stretch like this one: 13 months with three major titles by a man who was 35 and then 36 years old. No one believed that could happen. And it wouldn’t have happened, if not for a man like Federer.
There’s no one like him.
