Lightning Strikes Same Spot Twice
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by Pete Bodo
It used to be that, as a reporter, you could breathe a big sigh of relief and start making dinner reservations when you saw the Roger Federer was scheduled to play a mid-event match at night; you were in safe hands and spared the customary double-shift that has become de rigeur in this day of split sessions at most major tournaments.
No longer.
As you all know by now, Federer lost 7-6 in the third to Tomas Berdych last night after failing to convert a match point for the second Masters 1000 tournament in a row. What kind of odds might you have gotten on that metric, at the start of Indian Wells? There, the lucky (and astonished) lottery winner was Marcos Baghdatis. Here, it was Berdych, but this time, Federer blew just one match point instead of three. Dude's improving, huh?
So now we have the spectre of coaches leaving their proteges with this bit of advice at the locker room door, as the step out to meet Roger Federer: Just take your time. Don't rush. Don't panic. Once he gets to match point, it's in the bag!
If that makes some of you Federer fans want to rip off your black armband and strangle me with it, remember, we were here, or some place very like it, almost exactly a year ago, when Federer decided to try drilling for oil through the purple Crandon Park court with his Wilson. And by the end of the Grand Slam season, you were all sitting back, thinking, Well, that didn't work out so bad...
The bottom line is that while winning is always preferable to losing, Federer doesn't exactly need these Masters titles to flesh out his resume. This is no Ivan Ljubicic here. Shoot, Mirka probably uses Roger's collection of Masters shields as coasters, even though sippy-cups don't require them (you know how she is. . .). Federer is above sustaining emotional damage from losses like these two; he knows what lies buried in the strings and frame of his racket; that issue was resolved long, long ago.
What he does have to fret about, though, is having to live with what every other player on the planet faces as a condition of the workplace: the sense that perhaps he's vulnerable. The impetus this will give some opponents to step up and play bolder, more confident tennis. The glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, if you can stay with Federer through the chicanes and turns, you just might implant a splinter of doubt in his ordinarily sure hand when you reach the home stretch. When it comes to blown opportunities, players have memories like elephants, although the best ones, like Federer, are excellent at suppressing them. But there's no real remedy for history. Federer's best strategy will be to do what he's always done best: pull away from his opponent with an extra gear that's lately been unavailable.
Of course, Federer is aware of this. But his main concern of the moment is finding his form. He said of last night's error-prone performance: "I fought as much as I could. My game has issues at the moment, I'm definitely lacking timing. I don't know where that comes from."
Given a choice between having fight and a wobbly game or a functional game but wavering desire, I'd take the former, any time.
Nobody really knows "where that (loss of timing) comes from." While there's an outside chance that it comes from his head, from simply losing that instinctive, predatory sharpness that is the young player's greatest ally, Federer has earned the right not to be second-guessed that way (he earned it last year). The issues more likely are subject to correction, driven by the natural reaction to the events of the past few weeks. Federer probably will go home, rest and think for a few days, take a deep breath and book a practice court. He knows by now how this game works; how you're only as good as your last result, and that's apt to make him dangerous come the clay court season.
Lightning never strikes the same place twice, they say, but in Federer's case it did. But I expect that he'll respond by throwing a few bolts of his own in the coming meat of the Grand Slam season.