by Pete Bodo
NEW YORK—The match-point serve whistled straight and true, burning air toward the forehand corner of Novak Djokovic's deuce court; in one of the odd contortions that have become so familiar to us, especially in this, the year of Novak, his body did different and seemingly contradictory things simultaneously, torso moving one way, right-arm another, legs splayed, all adding up to an improbable conclusion—an astonishing, blazing forehand service-return winner that would keep the Serb alive for at least one more swing of the racket.
As the ball caromed away and the umpire called out 40-30, the din poured into the bowl of the stadium. Djokovic looked up at the 20,000-plus spectators and flung his arms in the air and pumped them, demanding his due. His face was frozen in an edgy grin, confirming that he was chiding the crowd for having been so volubly pro-Federer for most of the match as well as soliciting its support.
The crowd did what a self-enamored crowd usually does when it's acknowledged: the spectators responded with an avalanche of noise, as if they finally noticed Djokovic now that the match was three hours and 36 minutes old. And they provided Djokovic with the energy he sought.
It was at that moment that the plot veered yet again, that Djokovic turned the match in his favor one last time. He needed the twist, too; he had just handed Federer the break (at love, no less) that put the five-time U.S. Open champ in a position to serve it out at 5-3 in the fifth set. And Djokovic himself was well aware that he had previously recovered from a two-sets-to-none deficit just once in his career (at Wimbledon in 2005, vs. Guillermo Garcia Lopez, a player who's never been mistaken for Roger Federer).
Federer still had another match point, but the atmospherics suddenly were different. He handcuffed Djokovic with a serve and elicited a poor return, but Federer then botched an inside-out forehand that skipped off the let cord and fell out.
Musing over that wicked forehand winner that launched the dramatic turnaround after Djokovic booked his place in Monday's final with a 6-7 (7), 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, 7-5 win, a bitterly disappointed Federer would repeat the precise word his interlocutor used: "Confidence? Are you kidding me? I mean, please. Look, some players grow up and play like that. I remember losing junior matches. Just being down 5?2 in the third, and they all just start slapping shots. It all goes in for some reason, because that's the kind of way they grew up playing when they were down.
"I never played that way. I believe in hard work's gonna pay off kinda thing, because early on maybe I didn't always work at my hardest. So for me, this is very hard to understand how can you play a shot like that on match point. . . maybe he's been doing it for 20 years so for him it was normal. You've got to ask him."
Understandably, Djokovic's explanation was quite different. On-court in his post-match interview he had described the forehand winner as "lucky." Later, he elaborated: "That forehand return I cannot explain to you because I don't know how it happened. You know, yeah, I read his serve and I was on the ball and I had to hit it hard and it got in—luckily for me. . . Maybe it was lucky because it was in the right moment, but I took my chances. I took my chances, and I hit it very clean."
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In much the same way that luck usually favors the better athletes, history has a way of handing gifts to its chosen favorites. It offered a significant prize to Federer at this U.S.Open—an opportunity to turn around an entire season by playing one great match. Think about it. Were Federer to win today, it would have ruined Djokovic's nearly perfect season, holding the No. 1 from Serbia to two Grand Slam titles and an 0-2 record against Federer at majors.
Granted, that wouldn't have been as gratifying for Federer as winning a Slam or two of his own, or moving up from No. 3 in the rankings. But it suddenly and dramatically would have put him on more equal terms with his two main rivals. The nagging feeling I had about midway through the third set of the match was that history had offered up its gift, and at the very last moment Federer turned his back on it and walked away. I have a better idea of the how in that process than the why, about which I can only speculate that after seizing so many opportunities and chances, an aging champion eventually just plain loses interest. It's probably a subconscious thing.
As for the how, it was all about the second game of the third set. Up to that point, Federer had his foot planted firmly on Djokovic's throat. It took all Djokovic could do to hold the first game of the third set, stabbing looks at the crew in his guest box and berating himself freely and often. But Federer immediately took his foot off the gas and played a truly awful, 16-point game to be broken for the first time in the match.
The game all began with a sloppy let-cord error that allowed Djokovic to get to 30-all. Federer won the next point, but then shanked a backhand. He would hold two more ad-points, but fail to convert either. Over time, he must have drilled five or six groundstrokes into the center of the net in that game, and when he was finally broken—after another feeble backhand failed to clear the net—everything quickly changed. Djokovic lost just four points on his serve the rest of the third set, and roared out of the gate in the fourth with four straight love games.
There would be more critical junctures to come in this three-hour and 51-minute epic, but had Federer held to start he end of the third, he might have won in straights. But Federer didn't exactly see it that way: "You have to figure Novak was gonna get his teeth into the match at one stage, right? It's a pity that it happened then, because I think I had a couple of game points, too. So it hurts getting broken that way."
Novak's take was different yet, and closer to mine: "I think when I made the break early in the third set I relaxed a little bit. I started hitting the shots that I maybe didn't hit in the opening two sets, and he started making more mistakes. But that's a switch of momentum. That's what happens."
Hmmm. . . I'm not sure it was fated to happen, or that Djokovic was destined to sink those teeth into the match. I mean, plenty of guys have gone down in three listless sets and spent an hour explaining how there's just so much you can do when an opponent plays the match of a lifetime.
To me, a remark Federer made almost off-handedly halfway through his presser was more germane if more difficult to quantify. Turning reflective, he muttered: "I did all the right things in so many tournaments. But sometimes in sports it just goes the other way, you know. Maybe you've already won so much that it evens it out a bit sometimes. . . I don't know."
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On the tactical and strategic fronts, the match offered numerous tantalizing questions and issues. One of the most striking for me was a factor that became increasingly significant as the match went on, and that was the advantage Djokovic had in the backhand department.
Federer hit some beautiful, topspin, down-the-line backhands to keep himself in rallies, but he often resorted to the slice. And the longer the match went on, the more he relied on it. Djokovic is too good at this point to make many errors when he's presented with a change of pace. Today, too many of those sliced backhands seemed to have little purpose other than to mark time, and they often gave Djokovic an opportunity to hit the reset button in a rally, or to maneuver himself into an advantageous position.
