Sometimes, a match really does come down to something as simple as first-serve efficiency, even when the principals are titans on the order of ATP no. 1 Novak Djokovic and no. 2 Roger Federer.
So it was tonight in semifinals of the Rome Masters, as Djokovic battered his way to a straight sets win (6-2, 7-6 (4)) that earned him a date in the final with no. 3 Rafael Nadal.
Were it not for an unexpected late-match surge by Federer, accompanied by a momentary loss of composure by Djokovic, the final score - and my first paragraph - might have been even more convincing.
Federer started well enough, blasting an ace in the very first game. It seemed almost emblematic of the kind of aggressive, precise tennis that had carried him to the semis; little did anyone expect that he would not hit another ace until the third game of the second set, by which time he, with plenty of help from the implacable Djokovic, had dug himself into a very deep hole.
From the onset, Djokovic was the familiar, relentless terminator, punching out clockwork forehands and backhands as efficiently as a Pez dispenser doling out candies. By the third game of the match, Federer's serve had abandoned him - as had his forehand. Although he had pushed Djokovic to deuce in the second game, two forehand errors allowed the no. 1 to escape. Two forehand errors by Federer to start the next game, followed by a prodigious backhand down-the-line winner by Djokovic, brought on triple break point against Federer. He failed to get his first serve in and added another forehand error to hand Djokovic the break.
The outstanding feature of the next few games was the contrast between the firm, heavy game of Djokovic and Federer's admirable if almost frail-looking attempts to stay in the rallies. And that's the problem in this match-up, under these conditions; Dj0kovic's game is a like a mighty ship bearing down on a much smaller, lighter vessel. It takes an incredible amount of power to turn that ship, it just can't be done with a one-handed backhand - at least not on clay.
In addition to serving poorly when it really counted, costly and uncharacteristic errors like those forehands II just described continued to plague Federer. He ended up making more than twice as many unforced errors as Djokovic (42-20), without making it up for it with a load of winners (Federer had 22, just 8 more than his opponent).
Djokovic rolled through that first set on the strength of another break, and he had a break point against Federer in the first game of the second set. But once Federer escaped that, we experienced a bit of a lull, broken only in the seventh service game. Federer fell behind in that one while serving, 15-40, and failed to put another first-serve into play in the game. He wiped away the first break point with an inside-out forehand winner, but failed to defuse the second one, ending a rally with a forehand error. Break. Dj0kovic leads, 4 games to 3.
Djokovic had the match on his racquet two games later, serving at 5-4. Up to that point, he had won an astonishing 22 of the 23 first-serve points he'd played. But after adding another point behind a first serve (it boosted Nole's conversion percentage to 96 percent), Federer suddenly came to life. Although Djokovic would still blast his way to a match point, he was unable to squeeze the Swiss genie back into the bottle for good. Federer survived the match point and went on to break Djokovic.
That Djokovic failed to win the point after getting his first serve in four times in that game was a sign of how dramatically things had turned around. A replenished Federer won 13 of 15 points in the span that ended with Federer ahead, 6-5. But Djokovic re-grouped and held to force the tiebreaker.
Federer, who could not extend the match long enough to reach a first-serve conversion percentage of 50, quickly sealed his own fate in the tiebreaker. Serving first, he had to give a second ball. The ensuing rally was one of the longest of the match, lasting 25 shots. But it ended with Federer smacking the net-tape with forehand, and that mini-break was all Djokovic needed. He took care of his own serve the rest of the way and ran out the win.