>INSIDE ON THE OPEN
Major quest still on track after second five-set test
Roger Federer survives five-set thriller, while Shelby Rogers wins the longest women’s match in Open history.
Ten sets. Five hours and 45 minutes of tennis.
Roger Federer, deadpan: “I feel quite warmed up by now.”
No one imagined it would be this hard, this nail-biting, for the Fed Express at the U.S. Open.
A day after delighting an adoring public by practising on the public courts at Central Park, Federer came this close to crashing out of Flushing Meadows, rallying from a 1-2 set deficit to prevail over a nearly equally superannuated — and cramp-hobbled — second-round opponent, Mikhail Youzhny.
Which made Federer a career 17-0 over the valiant, if rueful, Russian.
Albeit clearly in pain in the fifth frame, his serve compromised by spasms in his foot, Youzhny rebounded from deuce half a dozen times for a huge hold in the fourth game, but was broken on a double fault in the seventh. Federer held to love and then broke Youzhny in a second chance at match point: 6-1, 6-7, 4-6, 6-4, 6-2.
But holy-moley. Like all this stricken Slam needed was to lose its No. 2. How much 36-year-old Federer — grappling with his own back issue and surviving back-to-back five-setters — has left in the tank remains to be seen. But at least he will continue to be seen ’round Queens, after securing his 80th match win at the U.S. Open, behind only Jimmy Connors (98). Not before, however, being twice broken by Youzhny when serving for a set.
This is not the Federer who’d put on such a magnificent display of tennis renaissance over the past year, returning from knee surgery to claim both the Australian Open and Wimbledon, in pursuit now of his first Slam trifecta since 2007.
Until Federer took command of the final set Thursday, it had been quite a tense thing. Although apparently not so much to Roger, even as other marquee players have cracked in the early rounds.
“Look, probably it helps me to have been there so much,” he told reporters, a reminder that he’s played 26-14 in five-setters, though never before grinding out consecutive quints at this major. “Like today, again, fifth set. I backed myself to find a way in the fifth. I find my way. I don’t panic. I think the point-by-point mentality helps me a lot. Not thinking too far ahead.”
It’s a lesson he took to heart way back in 2003, a first-round loss at Roland Garros to Peruvian Luis Horna.
“I lost the first set. I looked at the match like it was a mountain to climb. I was thinking completely the wrong thing than just, let’s hit the next forehand for a winner. Best-offive can sometimes do that to you. By having a very simple mindset, it keeps me very simple, keeps me grounded, humble as well.”
Well, that’s a bit of hogwash. There’s nothing simple about Federer’s multi-faceted nuanced game, where he can introduce a reconstituted backhand to his repertoire just this past season.
He is a shot-making savant, if sometimes, so rarely, stumble-stepping in the process as nearly occurred against a world No. 101 like Youzhny.
Or 48 hours previously, just sidestepping American teenager Frances Tiafoe.
That encounter, said Federer, was scarier.
“Just the unknown of the … first round, pressure of being back on Ashe (court). The rust was clearly there, not quite knowing: can I pick up my game?”
After skipping Cincinnati, he meant, with the back problem that had flared up in his final loss to Alexander Zverev at the Rogers Cup in Montreal.
No such doubt about winning for Roger Rampant on this occasion. Magisterially confident.
“I felt like I was going to, in some way. I didn’t disappoint myself.”