The Jolly Roger

by Pete Bodo

From early February until around 2 pm today (if you keep "tennis time" instead of chronological time, 2 pm was 6-7, 5-7, 3-4, break-point, Haas) it has seemed like almost anybody could beat Roger Federer at this year's French Open; now it almost feels like nobody can - and if somebody threatened to, some unforeseen development would intervene:

A piano falls on Andy Murray's head, right there on Philippe Chatrier Court! A particularly strong gust of wind blows Nikolay Davydenko into the duck pond in the Bois de Boulogne! How about this: Fernando Gonzalez tees up a big forehand, swings, and - whoa! - his arm goes flying off into the crowd, kind of like Robin Soderling's racket did after he beat Rafael Nadal yesterday.

That, by the way, was an upset so preposterous that it adds just a wee bit more credibility to this rapidly emerging theme that all Federer needs to do to win this Roland Garros is keep breathing, and avoid getting arrested for some offense for which the magistrate won't set bail. As it is, he may get arrested Sunday anyway, for stealing the Coupe de Mousquetaires, which is the trophy given each year to the male champion at Roland Garros, and named for an American television show wildly popular in the 1950s.

Now seriously, folks. If you think I'm just trying to diminish Federer's narrow escape today - y'all saw him bust back from that hopeless situation to beat Tommy Haas - you don't have to take my word for it. Try this: When Neil Harman asked Federer to talk about the form he finally found late in the match, Federer said:

"Yes, and, you know, like I said, I think I played actually pretty well against Acasuso to come out of that one. I think the conditions were rough against Mathieu - with the daylight, the sun, the shadow and the winds. I came out of that match not knowing exactly where I was. That's kind of how I felt also in the first couple sets against Tommy Haas.

"Now that I won the last three sets - you know, that I just played - I feel much better. I think it would have been different having, let's say had I been up two sets, lost two sets, and then winning the fifth. But like this, you know, I really felt like I was getting stronger as the match went on. Of course, he didn't put up - maybe he didn't play his best set in the fourth set when I won 6-Love. . .But still, I was able to put him away there. And when I really needed to play well, I really found my A game in the fifth set. 

"That was a great feeling to get, and I hope that can inspire me to play actually really nice tennis in the next round."

You gotta love the "truth-teller" in The Mighty Fed (Of course, he didn't put up - maybe he didn't play, etc.), who looked about as relaxed as I've ever seen him when he met with the international press after the match. And why not? It seems like the guy can't do anything not to win this tournament. Hail, Nadal owned this place, but year after year he still sailed in here in his piratas, flying the Jolly Roger, demolishing opponents and punctuating his forehands with his own version of the cry, Yarr, me hearties! Ye be walking the plank!

Federer is different, he is the Jolly Roger these days, merrily lurching toward a Sunday he's destined to experience prowling around on red clay instead of in a church pew. Even long-time fans of Federer's game have been saying that Roger has been living on borrowed time (I guess when you have a record like his, you qualify for an unlimited credit-line). But you just don't give a player of Federer's quality multiple opportunities to get his game in order - today, Haas died for the sins of Acasuso and Mathieu as well as his own, because by the time we got to the fifth set, Federer was playing the kind of tennis that reminded us of. . . Roger Federer.

The truth-teller knew what really went on there, but, oddly enough Haas did not. While he has that distinctly Teutonic, pre-emptory way of making a statement that leaves you feeling that no alternate opinion or fact could possibly be true, it was still hard to swallow Haas's interpretation of how the match played out. I didn't want to flat-out ask the poor guy if he felt he choked it away, so I asked Haas if he was angry with himself for letting a big opportunity slip. He explained:

"How am I supposed to feel? Sure, I'm disappointed, you know. I mean, every time you go out there it's like a boxing match, you know, you lose and it's tough, you know. You have to swallow it and accept it. When it's especially when you are close like that it hurts more. You know, be realistic, it's not easy to lose a match like this. . . I just went out there, tried to play as good as I could. I came close to maybe beating him today, which would have been nice no matter where it was at, because it's been a really long time. But in the fifth set, again at 2-all, I made a few slight errors, unfortunately, and he just kept playing better and hitting the winners when he needed them."

Of course, by the fifth set, Federer was whaling on the ball like he gets paid for it (oh, that's right, he does!). But the real problem wasn't that Haas did this or that wrong - it's that Federer had found his game and was doing this and that right, which makes life tough even for guys as good as Haas. Granted, the little inside-out forehand that Federer tagged to dispatch the point that would have put him down 3-5 in the third, with Haas serving for the match, was certainly a sweet shot. Federer's own take on it highlights not only the shot's significance, it also contains a very frank assessment of what, at the end of the day, was far less good a match than it appeared:

"I thought almost that it was my first good shot of the match.  It came on a break point on the third set.  I knew the significance that have shot, because I knew if I come out of that game I can create some opportunities later on and in that set. I knew I was going to look back on that shot. That saved me on that day, you know. That's exactly what happened, and I was able to turn around the whole match. It's a great feeling, because I was in quite some danger right there."

It takes two to tango, so let's not ignore the demoralizing effect Federer's game-saving forehand winner had on Haas. It led him to break that cardinal rule of competition: play each point as if it had no relation to the one that came before, or the one that would come next.

Easier said than done. As Haas said, "You know, after the third set, obviously it was mentally a little tough to swallow for me, because, like I was saying, you know, 3-4 break point, maybe (me) serving it out. (Then) at 4-all, I had, I don't know if I had game point. Maybe I did. I double faulted, then I saved the break point. It was a long game, and I lost it. He served it out. That was tough."

It's always the loser who has the complicated story, but at least that bit of analysis was a little closer to what remains a pretty unadorned truth about this artless match: Haas had the match, Haas blew the match, Federer did himself a big service by not getting in his own way once Haas caved in that key game in the third set. Or let's put it this way: If Haas had played with the kind of determination and sand that Robin Soderling showed yesterday, we'd all be writing about what would have been the weirdest development at Roland Garros in many years - back-to-back losses in the fourth round by the two men who have contested the last three finals. It certainly would have cemented Nadal and Federer's flourishing bro-mance.

When it comes to Federer, he's been at the center of the most extraordinary series of tennis events in recent memory. Up until May 17th (or, if you keep the tennis calendar instead of the or Gregorian or even the Mayan calendar, the day of the Madrid final), it seemed like Federer was falling hopelessly off the pace set by Nadal, and whether or not he could fend off Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray seemed an even more pertinent question than whether he would ever again beat Nadal, complete a career Grand Slam, and equal or perhaps even break the Grand Slam singles title record that - fewer than 12 months ago - some folks thought he would surpass by 3, 8, 11 titles.

So far this year, Federer has played erratic, distracted-looking tennis, often immersed in what appeared to be a psychological bath of, if not negativity, then something like disinterest. The most logical diagnosis was champion's fatigue, a condition for which there is only one known cure - opportunity. And the big difference in the days leading up to May 17th and now is that Federer's opponents lately have not only been providing him with the cure, they've been holding his mouth open and making him swallow it in great big doses.

One of Federer's great assets is that he makes the game appear easy, and he seems to expend half the effort of most players to reap twice the reward. That's because his bio-mechanics, timing and sensitivity to range are extraordinary. The First Commandment of tennis - or almost any enterprise that involves striking a moving object - is keeping your eyes on the target, all the way up to - and through - impact.

Does anyone watch the ball as scrupulously and obviously as Federer? Just watch film, or look at the stills (like the lead photo on this post) - on his follow-through, the racket is wrapped around TMF's opposite shoulder and he's still glaring at the spot where the ball had been until its happy flight was so rudely interrupted. If Federer were a red-tailed hawk, there wouldn't be a field mouse left on the planet.

But let's get back to the main theme: Federer has been playing some pretty lousy tennis and getting away with it. And while champions are never more dangerous than when they've belted their way out of a seemingly hopeless situation, Federer desperately needs to sustain the heights he hit in the fifth set today, should his surviving rivals not be as eager to fling themselves on their own swords. I think Federer understands this, it was encapsulated in part of that comment he made above: "I think it would have been different having, let's say had I been up two sets, lost two sets, and then winning the fifth. But like this, you know, I really felt like I was getting stronger as the match went on. . .That was a great feeling to get, and I hope that can inspire me to play actually really nice tennis in the next round."

That's a neat bit of truth-telling, too. Not long after he said that, Federer was asked if he especially feared a potential match-up with Andy Murray. He pondered this for a moment, then replied: "Not really. I mean, sure, he has a good chance to make the finals, you know. But then at the same time, I think Davydenko has it, you know. I mean, he's been written off a little bit. I've been disappointed that I haven't heard much about him, you know, because he's a great player. He was in the top 4 for a long time. He was unfortunate with some injuries. So he couldn't keep his ranking because of that, not because he was losing first rounds all the time. I think that's why he's actually got a great chance of going forward. . ."

All right, even a truth-teller is entitled to a white lie now and then, right?