You would have been forgiven for thinking that Roger Federer had done it all at age 33, with 17 Grand Slam titles and 302 weeks at No. 1 already in the bank. But then along comes this autumn in the autumn of Federer’s singular career: a stretch when he is saving match points and conjuring victories as never before, a stretch when he has a chance to win his and Switzerland’s first Davis Cup. It is hard to know whether the fine and feisty match that Federer salvaged Saturday night at the ATP World Tour Finals will help or hurt that communal cause. His comeback victim under the roof of O2 Arena was Stan Wawrinka, his friend and Davis Cup teammate, who will take on the French with him in the final in Lille, France, in less than a week. Continue reading the main story Related Coverage Novak Djokovic with the trophy he was presented Friday as the tour’s year-end No. 1. On Tennis: Work to Do, but Novak Djokovic Sews Up Top Year-End RankingNOV. 14, 2014 But Federer’s stirring 4-6, 7-5, 7-6 (6) victory, in which he saved four match points late in the third set, was certainly proof that Wawrinka, who has blown hot and cold all season, is still capable of generating plenty of heat at this late stage in the game. Now Federer, who needed 2 hours 48 minutes to wriggle free, has to prove he can recover in a hurry if he is to stand a chance in the final of these year-end championships Sunday night against the much more established threat posed by Novak Djokovic. “It’s clearly not easy, especially since I’ve had an established rhythm here: one day a match, the next day no match,” Federer said at his 1 a.m. news conference. “But the final starts at 6 p.m., so I have a bit of time to recover. Not a lot, but I’ve experienced this plenty in the past and will try to play my best tomorrow.” Djokovic played a less grueling three-setter of his own earlier Saturday, requiring 1:27 to beat Kei Nishikori, 6-1, 3-6, 6-0, and give himself the opportunity to win the World Tour Finals for a third straight year. Federer has won it a record six times. Many fans here had been hoping for this matchup as they moaned and groaned through blowout after blowout in the round-robin stage. Saturday provided much more entertainment value, and London will now get a rematch of a final played on the other side of town in July when Djokovic prevailed in five sets to win Wimbledon. That victory helps explain why Djokovic, not the second-ranked Federer, will finish the year at No. 1. But Federer still holds a 19-17 career edge in their rivalry and has beaten Djokovic in three of their other four matches this season, including the semifinals in Shanghai last month. “I know what to expect from him,” Djokovic said. “Hopefully I can deliver what I imagine.” It required plenty of imagination to visualize an escape hatch for Federer as Wawrinka piled up the match points while serving at 5-4 in the third set. But this was the same Federer who saved two match points before beating Gaël Monfils in the quarterfinals of this year’s United States Open, and the same Federer who saved five match points against Leonardo Mayer in his opening round in Shanghai last month and went on to win the tournament. Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story This was also the same Federer who had beaten Wawrinka, his longtime understudy, in 14 of their previous 16 matches and all of their Grand Slam matches. Wawrinka, 29, got a taste of a better world this year: winning his first major title at the Australian Open in January and beating Federer in the Monte Carlo final in April. He went at Federer on Saturday with little hint of an inferiority complex. He got the better of the baseline rallies and was surprisingly superior with his forehand. He broke Federer’s serve in the opening game of the third set after Federer failed to hear an overrule by the chair umpire Cedric Mourier on a Wawrinka shot on the first point. Federer argued to no avail after later realizing he was down by 0-40. But Wawrinka’s big first serve failed him when he needed it most, and his tactical choices were questionable as he served for victory at 5-4 in the final set. He chose to serve and volley on second serves on his first two match points. Federer saved the first with a passing shot, and Wawrinka badly misplayed a backhand volley to squander the second. On the third match point, he came forward again and popped up a forehand volley that Federer hit for another winner. “A match like that, you make some choices, especially when you are tired and when you are nervous, and I just wanted to go for it and not wait for a mistake,” Wawrinka said. Federer would do damage with his volleys, too, and after saving one more match point in the tiebreaker with a first serve at 5-6 that Wawrinka sent long, he closed the match with two deft forehand drop volley winners. The handshake was amicable, close to sympathetic, but hardly extended, and a red-eyed Wawrinka was as unclear as everyone else about the Davis Cup repercussions of a loss this wrenching. “I could be destroyed, or I could bounce back quickly,” Wawrinka said. Federer said he planned to play a role in Wawrinka’s recovery. “I hope for him and for me, too, that he lifts his spirits quickly, and I hope he is not too disappointed,” Federer said. “I feel I was lucky to win today.” It was hard to argue, but for anyone who has watched Federer in this autumn of living and playing dangerously, it did not seem much like a coincidence.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 04:48:03 +0000
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