By Cheryl Jones
Nine time Gerry Weber Open winner Roger Federer saved his best tennis of the day for the Tie-Break in a three set thriller. The match should have been an easy win for him against Frenchman, Benoit Paire. The two had faced each other five times, with Federer the victor in each of the other matches, but none of them were contested on grass.
The World Number One player, who at 36, is the oldest man to ever lay claim that ranking in the Open Era, looked tentative in the second set. His steady play in the first set took a mere twenty-seven minutes. It looked as if he had another win to add to his long list of grass court wins. Today, he was on a seventeen-match grass-court win streak that dates back to his ninth title in Halle last year. (Paire had played thirty-six matches on the surface, with 18 wins and 18 losses.)
The Swiss Maestro chalked up a 6-3 first set that left him with a lead that could have propelled him to finish the match more quickly – but it didn’t. The first set was really a romp, leaving Paire frustrated and quite agitated, even though he seemed to be playing solid tennis. He gave his racquet a beating on the grass, and the Umpire gave him a warning that he would be docked a point if he kept up the racquet abuse. On his next toss of the racquet, he was careful to keep it off the grass, just skimming the surface that actually maintained its level condition.
In the after-match interview, I asked Federer if the histrionics of opponents affected the way he played the match after seeing an outburst from frustrated rivals. He said that basically he didn’t pay much attention to what the other players did on changeovers, unless they damaged the court surface. He heard the rumblings of the crowd when the racquet smashing was happening, but that rumbling was only temporary because Paire’s Babolat racquet managed to maintain its shape and there was no need for a pause in the play to replace the offensive piece of equipment.
The second set was virtually all Paire. He broke Federer’s service in the second and fourth games, and smoothly finished up with a mirror image of the first set at 6-3 in his favour. (Not bad for someone ranked 48 and more than seven years younger than the virtuoso player from Switzerland.) He had never been very successful against top players, having a 6 win and 30 loss record against top ten opponents. He was 0 and 3 against Number One and Number Two seeds. It looked as if he could pull out an unexpected win and the crowd was restless, but thrilled to be able to see a third set.
The third set was a teeter-totter kind of contest, with the lead trading sides often. When the score reached 6-6, it was time for a Tie-Break that became a give and take kind of affair as well. (There couldn’t be another Isner versus Mahut contest in the making, even ardent fans couldn’t turn the stadium into a virtual sleep over arena. There was another match scheduled for later today.)
The edge of your seat match seemed to have taken much longer than it actually did. The hour and fifty-eight minute contest was over at 7-6 and a relieved Roger Federer had recorded yet another victory in the stadium that must seem like home to the man from Basel, Switzerland who has been chalking up victory after victory on the grass courts here and in Wimbledon.
After today, he has a 170-24 grass court win count. He is creeping up on the record now held by Jimmy Connors – 174-34. Even a win at this year’s Gerry Weber Open will leave him a couple of wins short of that record, but Wimbledon is next on his dance card and if he continues to play as he has in the past, the record should be his after the third round.
It’s unlikely that he has spent much time contemplating this latest approachable accomplishment because he insists that he concentrates on the match at hand and not what could occur in the future. He will face Matthew Ebden of Australia tomorrow afternoon in the Quarterfinals and if all the shots go where he plans to place them, he will move on to the Semi-final match on Saturday and winning that will propel him into the final that will be on the docket for Sunday afternoon.
