Fearless Federer

I came back from lunch with Debs and turned on the TV to the Australian Open Tennis and a quite stunning sight greeted me. Roger Federer, Mr Cool, Mr Nearly Unbeatable, a man who has participated in the last 10 consecutive Grand Slam finals (winning eight of them), was down two sets to one in the third round of the tournament.

Sure, there was talk of the illness that forced him to pull out of his usual warm-up tournament leading up to the Open, but he had absolutely demolished his previous two opponents, Diego Hartfield and Fabrice Santoro, for the loss of a mere three games in each match. His imperious displays had led to the possibility of him repeating his 2007 feat of winning the Australian Open without dropping a set.

Instead, when I picked up the action at the start of the fourth set, Federer was looking far from cool and he was down 6-7, 7-6, 5-7 against Jarno Tipsarevic, an unheralded Serb. Federer soon set things aright by taking the fourth set 6-1 after a few lapses in concentration by Tipsarevic, but the match soon turned into an almighty struggle.

Tipsarevic was taking the match to Federer, showing a complete lack of nerves, saving break points with huge serves and huge forehand winners, painting the lines and showing no fear at all. It was supremely telling that Federer had 25 break points by the end of the match, succeeding on only 5 occasions. Federer was often impregnable on serve, hitting well over 30 aces and winning 90% of his first serve points, but Tipsarevic was able to make the big points count and took all 3 of his break points.

In the fifth set, the match turned into a marathon battle of wills. From 1-1 when Federer had break points on the Tipsarevic serve till 8-8, i.e. for 14 consecutive games, both men stared each other down and neither deigned to blink. There was not a single break point in those 14 games. Lesser men than Federer would have become disheartened as opportunity after opportunity was either squandered, or more often saved by a terrific Tipsarevic winner. But he is a man already considered one of the all-time greats, with one eye on history.

The end of the match was a tribute to Federer's refusal to give up and his determination to play every single point. Tipsarevic was leading 40-0 on his serve and anybody would have been forgiven for giving up and having one eye on the next service game. Federer somehow managed to claw it back to deuce, and on a second break point in the game (and the umpteenth of the match) things finally went his way when Tipsarevic dumped a lunging backhand volley into the net. Federer naturally closes the set and match out 10-8 on his serve but not before exhibiting nerves (yes, even he is capable of them!), ending the nearly four and a half hour marathon.

The relative rarity of Federer's involvement in five set marathons - he quipped that he isn't often involved in five setters unless it involves Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon - is a testament to just how good he is. Federer involved in an almighty struggle, now that is a rarity given that he more regularly crushes his opponents, and it made for quite the spectacle. The crowd certainly appreciated it, giving both players a relentless standing ovation when the match was over. This was tennis of the highest quality, a true test of will and determination, profoundly captivating.

Take no credit away from Tipsarevic who played bravely, and often brilliantly, but faced with the relentlessness, the confidence and the coolness of Roger Federer, the bets were always on him to crack first, no matter how much he played outside of his skin. Because, at this rate, this is now about a battle between Roger Federer and history, and there is only ever going to be one winner there.