Federer faces challenge of Roland Garros
PARIS – There are two distinct sounds when Roger Federer graces the courts of Roland Garros. One is the pop of backhands and forehands kicking up puffs of red clay. The other, getting ever louder, is the scratchy tick of life’s clock.
At age 33, with 34 bearing down in August, time is increasingly the enemy to Federer’s quest to add to his already record haul of Grand Slam titles.
The count climbed to 17 with his seventh win at Wimbledon in 2012, when he was still a young 30-year-old. Then, abruptly, it stopped. In Federer’s golden spell from 2004-2009, there were 24 Grand Slam finals. Federer played in 20 of them, winning 14. But since his 2012 Wimbledon win against Andy Murray, just one of the 10 subsequent Grand Slam finals featured the Swiss: an epic five-setter lost to Novak Djokovic last year.
Of all places for Federer to prove that he still has another major title in him, Roland Garros would seem the least favorable. The slow red dust blunts nuances of his game so effective on other, faster surfaces. Having one of the sharpest tactical minds and best right hands tennis has ever seen were never quite enough for Federer at the only major he’s not won multiple times. He needed a sprinkling of luck, too. Federer’s only victory at the French Open, in five finals, came in 2009 against Robin Soderling, who did him the favor of taking “King of Clay” Rafael Nadal out of the picture in the fourth round.
Good fortune, in the shape of Maria Sharapova’s fingers, is smiling on Federer again this year. The defending women’s champion, called upon to pluck out the seeded men’s names in Friday’s draw, delivered a road map that could hardly be more favorable for Federer.
Sixth-seeded Nadal and third-seeded Murray were both drawn in the half of top-seeded Djokovic. That means second-seeded Federer would only have to play, at most, one of those infernal three who beat him at the semifinal or final stage of majors in 2013 and 2014. And such a blockbuster match could only happen in the June 7 final, if Federer gets that far.
“There is a chance to go very deep,” he acknowledged. “How deep remains to be seen depending on the level of play.”