Watching the first few games of the Federer-Djokovic semi this morning, I found myself thinking, “Does Federer ever get tired of having to win these things? Is he ever tempted to say, ‘Forget it, I just can’t deal with this today’?” Something about the look in his eye at the very start of the match put that thought into my head. Darren Cahill saw it, too, from his sideline perch. He commented that Federer looked “flat” and didn’t have the “anger” he usually has when he goes up against Djokovic.
But those thoughts didn’t stay in my head for long. Federer seemed to have the measure of Djokovic early. He was mixing up his backhand slice crosscourt with his down-the-line topspin backhand, and making some headway going after Djokovic’s forehand. The only problem was that that helped Djokovic get into a groove with his forehand, which he started using to take control of rallies. That’s when the match swung—Djokovic won four straight games at 3-5 to take the first set—and swung for good.
The key here is that Federer didn’t get a set under his belt. You know what happens then: He relaxes and gets on a roll, the way he did against Andy Roddick in the semis here a year ago. This time Federer just got tighter. He floated his backhand slices higher and softer than usual, and he pressed on his forehand, missing a bunch of them from midcourt. No matter what he says, Djokovic’s forthright confidence and talk of becoming No. 1 gets under Federer’s skin (that's the anger Cahill was talking about). He pressed against him in Montreal last summer and made those same uncharacteristic errors.
Djokovic did everything well, as he usually does. He negated the effectiveness of Federer’s slice by getting down for it and knocking strong backhands crosscourt and into the corner, which gave him an advantage in rallies. He defended extremely well; I don’t think I’d realized until today just how fast and rangy he is when he’s scrambling in the back of the court. Most important, he served well when he had to, winning lots of important points with the slider out wide in the deuce court and the flat one up the middle in the ad court.
There were two moments that tested Djokovic’s nerve. On both occasions he pulled out a trick from the old Jimmy Connors book of motivational ploys. In the second set, Federer came back from 1-5 to 3-5 and showed some signs of life. The chair umpire chose that moment to give Djokovic a warning for taking too much time between points. The Serb won the next point and stared at the umpire, and he did it again after he held for the set. The scenario repeated itself at the end of the match, this time with the Aussie crowd serving as Djokovic's motivation. After a bad miss during the tiebreaker, he mocked the audience for clapping at his mistake. When he won the next few points, he stared into the crowd and gave them the classic cocky jock nod—as in, “Um hmmm, that’s right.” (In 4th grade, we always said “That's right, I’m bad" when we did this, but I didn't read that on Djokovic's lips.) If he’d lost the tiebreaker, I might have said this stuff was unnecessarily self-distracting, but as with Connors, Djokovic thrived on being able to direct his nervous energy at something—or more precisely, someone.
My friend and fellow TENNIS editor Tom Perrotta, who was at the match, wrote in his blog that Federer was a step slow and that the stomach flu he had before the tournament had “impeded” him in this match because it had cut into his preparation time. (Federer himself was noncommittal on whether it had an effect.) I'm going to disagree with Tom on this one (don't kill me, TP!). If we start making excuses for losses by citing illnesses from two weeks earlier, we can use anything as an excuse. It’s not as if this was a shocking upset that needs to be explained by outside circumstances. Djokovic was already the second-best hard-court player in the world, had beaten Federer on the stuff before, and had looked impeccable in his earlier rounds here. Djokovic won by playing well at the right times and not letting Federer build any momentum—that’s enough explanation for me.
What does that fact mean long-term? Could this be called a changing of the guard? It will be awhile before we know that. I would say it’s a half-turn. Federer will not necessarily lose any confidence after this, though he did say afterward that it gets tiring always being the favorite (I knew I saw that look in his eye at the beginning!). He’s going to keep winning his share of majors—if all else fails, Wimbledon should serve as his "firewall," as they say on the campaign trail. What we can say for sure is that Djokovic has now proven himself to be a rival and threat for those majors, and that, between him and Nadal, Federer will have serious competition for all of them, and for the No. 1 ranking as well.
Would fans of men’s tennis want it any other way?
