'Vintage Federer': Roger gave his fans a chance to say that once again

The passing shot ticked the top of the tape and bounced upward. Normally a sudden change in trajectory like that is enough to spell doom for a player charging the net. This time, though, the net-rusher tracked the ball with his racquet, watched it a little more closely than he normally would onto his strings, held his arm steady, and blocked it crosscourt for a clean winner. The shot was executed exactly as any tennis textbook would teach it, yet it had been improvised in the blink of an eye.

That last sentence has always been Roger Federer’s playing style in a nutshell, and as he showed the world in his 6-2, 6-4, 6-4 dismantling of Tomas Berdych on Friday night in Melbourne, that’s still his style at 35. After six months without Federer, his fans had spent this week waiting for an “I’m baaaack” moment. It hadn’t happened in his sometimes-shaky wins over Jurgen Melzer and Noah Rubin, both of them qualifiers, in the first two rounds. Instead, it had taken a longtime Top 10 player, and perennial opponent of Federer’s, to make him feel comfortable again.

“I was hoping to play good against better-ranked players,” Federer said, “because I guess I know them more and I know these match-ups so well over the years that maybe sometimes it’s easier to play against them than it is against a qualifier.”

Federer certainly made it look easier. The first sign came in the third game, when he ranged to his left for a backhand, stepped into it with a long, unhesitating stride, and belted it up the line for a winner. Berdych had hit a strong shot into the corner, and he was surprised when the ball came back with even more pace. It may have been the best and most decisive shot Federer had hit all tournament.

From there, the Fed floodgates flew open; it was obvious he had a lot of shot-making to make up for. At 2-2, he backpedaled smoothly for an inside-in forehand winner. On the next point, he followed it up with a spry stealth attack on the net. A service break soon ensued, and Federer never trailed again. In the past, Berdych’s power has allowed him to take over matches against Federer, but fundamentally it’s a bad match-up for him. Unlike Rafael Nadal, whose topspin shots force Federer to hit from shoulder height, Berdych’s flat ones end up in his wheelhouse. On this night, Federer had no trouble taking care of the rest.

“From the baseline, honestly, I felt worlds better than in the first couple of rounds,” Federer said. “It’s just crazy how quick I got out of the blocks.”

Federer had his wide serve working in the deuce court; he made just 59 percent of first serves, but won 95 percent of those points. He dictated the rallies and rarely backed away from the baseline; he finished with 40 winners and 17 errors, and won 21 of 30 points on Berdych’s second serve. Federer was 20 of 23 at the net and converted four of five break points.

They say you’re only as good as your second serve, and that shot may have been the most impressive of all for Federer. Recognizing that Berdych wanted to attack with his backhand return, Federer mixed in second serves to the forehand side. With its combination of slice and kick, it’s a tricky shot to pull off, but Federer went after it boldly. A bamboozled Berdych failed to push him to deuce on his serve even once.

“I think it was a great mental test for me to see if I could stay in the match, point for point, keep rolling,” Federer said. “I was about to do that.”

Now that Federer has answered one question—“Can he play at his old level?”—it’s time for the next one. Or at least that’s what John McEnroe thought as he watched Federer take flight last night.

“Is he a threat to win it?” McEnroe said.

The same question has been asked of Federer at this stage of the Australian Open in five of the last six years. Since his last title there, in 2010, it has become a tradition that he arrives in Melbourne looking rested, and rolls through his early matches with imperious, crowd-pleasing ease. By the middle of the second week, after he’s destroyed his quarterfinal opponent, we’ve made him the favorite to win it all. But that changes once he faces a fellow member of the Big 4 in the semis. Since 2010, Federer’s Melbourne momentum has been stopped by Novak Djokovic twice, Rafael Nadal twice and Andy Murray once.

In that sense, it’s Djokovic’s second-round loss, rather than his own performance against Berdych, that’s the biggest reason to believe Federer can go all the way in 2017. His recent Aussie Open history says that he’ll win his next match, against Kei Nishikori. But that history is less clear about what will happen if he faces Murray in the quarters. Murray beat him here in 2013, but Federer has won all five of their meetings since.

With that said, Federer’s immediate future at this tournament matters less, and what he did against Berdych matters more, than it has in any of the past six years. This time Federer is just coming back, just testing his 35-year-old body and his surgically repaired knee, just seeing how it feels to be on tour again, just readying himself for another long campaign. Leaving Australia without a title in 2017 would likely be less disappointing to him than it has in seasons past. Feeling the rush of performance and competition, and knowing he can still hold up under its rigors, seems to be what he wants most out of this trip Down Under.

And I’m guessing that’s what tennis fans want most as well. We want to see what we’ve been missing, and in the way he floated and stung in Rod Laver Arena on Friday, Federer delivered it to us. He gave us another chance to say the most popular two words in tennis: “Vintage Federer.”

On a day, January 20th, when change came to America and the world, Federer showed us that some things are fine just as they are.