Federer aims for place in history
LONDON — Roger Federer’s greatness in the Wimbledon semifinals was drugging, anesthetizing.
If he had clapped a rag of chloroform over the mouth of Andy Murray at the All England Club, he couldn’t have done a better job of knocking out his opponent and kidnapping the tournament. The sheer sweetness in Federer’s palms made his opponent sag and the audience, too.
The 33-year-old always has been a man of deceptively mild outward temperament, but in his stunning semifinal victory over Murray on Friday, 7-5, 7-5, 6-4, he was in the most dangerously silken form of his life. This was blackout tennis.
As close set after close set fell in Federer’s favour, you found yourself wondering, how could something so ecstatically good be so dulling? How could something so smooth be such a blow? It’s worth observing that Federer has as much hardness in his hands as he does softness and he is accustomed to getting what he wants: he has won 17 Grand Slams.
“I know what I’m trying to achieve,” he said.
In Sunday’s final against top-ranked Novak Djokovic, he will try to become the first man in history to win Wimbledon eight times. As the great British sports writer Simon Barnes has observed of Federer, “I doubt if any athlete has ever exploited serenity to the same devastating effect.”
With the victory, Federer reached his 26th Grand Slam final and it’s hard to overstate the breadth of that achievement because he has done it in a golden age of men’s tennis.
His opponent, Djokovic, who defeated Richard Gasquet in straight sets, 7-6 (7-2) 6-4, 6-4, will be playing his 18th major final.
Few eras have been populated by a set of players with games as big and complete as Djokovic, Murray, and Rafael Nadal, well-defined champions each of whom might have set all-time records if they didn’t have to face each other in Grand Slams.
“It’s an extremely tough time to win these major events,” Murray pointed out, “because the guys that are around are phenomenal tennis players.”
Federer, who turns 34 next month, is the oldest man to reach the finals since Ken Rosewall in 1974.
Murray, the Scotsman and 2013 Wimbledon champion, was a threatening semifinal opponent, five years younger and with a home crowd behind him. But he simply couldn’t meet Federer’s magnificent shotmaking or serve. Federer faced just one break point — in the first game of the match. Murray never had as good a chance again.
“I couldn’t get a racket on too many returns,” he said.
As he left centre court Friday, though he beat the home favourite, throngs of people applauded him the entire way back to the locker-room. “That’s something I don’t remember having,” he said.
“Clearly its an amazing feeling,” he added. “I need to keep it up for one more match to make it the perfect week.”