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June 9, 2007
Extraordinary Federer digs deep to set up dream match with relentless Nadal
By Neil Harman, Tennis Correspondent, in Paris, The Times
There are sundry ways to win a tennis match – effortlessly, staggeringly,
destructively, torturously, or, in the case of Roger Federer at Roland
Garros yesterday, extraordinarily. As befits a player of his incomparable
talents, the extraordinary tends to come pretty much as a matter of routine.
Federer reached his second consecutive French Open final and his record eighth
in succession in grand-slam tournaments by beating the redoubtable Nikolay
Davydenko, the No 4 seed from Russia, 7-5, 7-6, 7-6. The world No 1 was
behind in each of the sets, often by a distance and each time he refused to
be subjugated, would not countenance the loss of a set, hung on by the skin
of his teeth and ultimately flourished.
His reaction at the end, a full-throated roar of delight and little leap in
the air, was that of a man who has done the hard bit, he has reached the
final and perhaps now he can swing freely. Getting to this point was what
mattered, to give himself a tilt at the title. The hard part is in the back
pocket, it is now a case of “let me be the real me” on Sunday.
And he will have to hope that it is the real Federer who shows up tomorrow,
for Court Philippe Chatrier will stage the match that everyone had expected
and that all but 126 players hoped would occur – a showdown with Rafael
Nadal, the Spaniard who has played 20 times on these courts and not been
beaten. For two hours yesterday, Novak Djokovic, the Serb who has excelled
at this tournament, went stroke for pounding stroke with the champion, but
after two sets he had reached the bottom of the petrol tank.
Some of the tennis these two young warriors provided was so tumultuous, it
felt as though the cobblestones that line the avenues here were trembling.
Federer has said that he has a plan to outdo Nadal – and after his first
clay-court victory over the Spaniard in Hamburg three weeks ago, he does not
fear the final, but perhaps he ought to pack a trident and net.
For all he tried, Djokovic could not spear the Spanish conquistador. He will
win a grand-slam tournament one day, but in this form and in this arena,
Nadal would not be broken and he won 7-5, 6-4, 6-2 in 2hr 28min.
For Davydenko, recriminations and perhaps a few tears are inevitable because
he knows that he had the Swiss where he wanted him so often, but when it
came to applying the coup de grâce, he stuttered – and if you
stutter against Federer, it usually spells curtains. At 4-2, 0-40 in the
first set, at 5-4 serving for the second set, leading 4-1 and then having
two sets points at 5-3 in the third – these and many other times Davydenko
ran himself ragged and played shots out of his socks to have Federer on the
precipice, but he refused to topple. There were 32 break points in the
match, Federer won four of 15, Davydenko three of 17.
Federer won sets two and three on tie-breaks, having a first-service
percentage of 37 and 52 per cent respectively. But in the first set, when he
was on the verge of sacrificing the momentum, it was the serve that saved
him, hitting the corners, taking the edge of the Russian’s racket where it
had previously been coming off the strings with gusto.
At this stage of a championship, it is not how many you win by, but how you
win and Federer excelled just at the moments when he appeared to be most
vulnerable, which is the mark of a real champion. How often did Federer,
dragged out wide on the backhand side by Davydenko’s punishing depth on the
double-fisted wing, make the Russian have to play one more and one more and
a further shot to win a rally?
On the eve of the championship, when Federer was sitting in a quiet room on a
road just off the Champs Elysées, he was every bit the picture of
contentment, saying that he “felt great about myself and my chances”. He
loved Paris – “there are so many things going on, you can duck and dive,
slip out for a coffee and unwind away from the hectic pace at the site”. He
could not wait for the tournament to commence.
Now we have reached the final weekend, that same air has descended upon him.
Take how he won the third-set tie-break against Davydenko. Federer reached
match point at 6-5 with a second-service ace down the T, was not helped when
the ball’s pace was killed by a dead patch of clay just inside the baseline
after a brilliant backcourt exchange, and then fell set point down, saving
that with an unreturnable serve. On his second match point, Federer chose to
play a deft crosscourt backhand, which dragged Davydenko forward and forced
him into an improvised two-fisted backhand slice that sailed wide.
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