Federer is greater than Tennys
Roger plays escape artist again by saving seven match points to oust Sandgren in QF
MELBOURNE: Roger Federer was not going to go gently, of course, no matter how daunting the number of match points—his opponent accumulated seven!—no matter how achy his 38-year-old legs, no matter how slow his serves, no matter how off-target his groundstrokes.
Federer still plays for the love of these stages and circumstances. Still yearns for more trophies, too. Down to his very last gasp, time and again, against someone a decade younger, 100th-ranked Tennys Sandgren of the United States, Federer somehow pulled off a memorable comeback to reach the Australian Open semi-finals for the 15th time.
Despite all sorts of signs he was not quite himself for much of the match, Federer beat the bicepsbaring, hard-hitting, court-covering Sandgren 6-3, 2-6, 2-6, 7-6 (8), 6-3 on Tuesday in a rollicking quarter-final that appeared to be over long before it truly was.
“For the most time there, I thought that was it. Of course, there’s little sparkles where maybe not. Then you’re like, ‘No, it IS over,’” said 20-time Grand Slam champion Federer, who only once before had won after facing as many as seven match points, equaling his personal best from all the way back in 2003. “Only maybe when I won that fourth set did I really think that, maybe, this whole thing could turn around.”
He said afterward that it had been his groin muscle that was the problem and he couldn’t be certain whether he would be fully recovered for his next match. That will come against defending champion Novak Djokovic.
“You can’t give a good player— let alone maybe the best player ever—that many chances to come back,” said Sandgren, his voice low, his eyes looking down. “They’re going to find their game and start playing well. That seemed to me what happened.”
In truth, so much had happened. Federer got into a dispute with a line judge and the chair umpire over cursing. He left the court for a medical timeout early in the third set, then was visited by a trainer later for a right leg massage.
Sandgren was run into by a ballkid during the changeover at 3-all in the tiebreaker, which he said was “physically painful” to his right calf but “wasn’t a big deal.”
“Back to the drawing board. Keep working. Keep trying to improve. Maybe I’ll get another look, another shot,” Sandgren said. “Maybe I’ll come through.”
After rolling through the second and third sets as Federer’s serve dropped from an average of 112 mph to 105 mph—“Wasn’t popping like it does normally,” Sandgren observed—and Federer’s unforced errors totaled 30, the underdog led 5-4 in the fourth set.
That’s when Sandgren earned his first trio of opportunities to end things and complete a careerdefining victory. On one, Sandgren dumped a backhand into the net. On the next, he pushed a forehand wide. On the third, another forehand found the net.
Then came four more match points in the tiebreaker. But Sandgren failed to close the deal at 6-3 ... or at 6-4 ... or at 6-5 ... or at 7-6.
“Honestly, when they told me seven, I was like, ‘What?!’ I thought it was three,” Federer said. “It’s such a blur.”
On Federer’s own second chance to take that set and force a fifth, Sandgren hit a ball that landed near the baseline. Federer thought it might be out—he turned to look at a line judge for a call that never came—yet barely flicked it back in a defensive manner, and Sandgren’s overhead smash went long.
Federer wagged his right index finger overhead -- the universal sign for “I’m No. 1!”—and was on the right path.
He ended the victory with a service winner at 119 mph, a little more than an hour after first staring down defeat.