Roger Federer was not supposed to play French Open.
He hasn’t played in Paris for the last three years and hadn’t reached the last four since 2012. When he made the surprise announcement after an early Australian Open exit, it raised alarm bells.
But on his return to clay, he showed he is still among the best on the surface, even though there has been one better throughout his career – the 11-time Roland Garros champion Rafael Nadal – that made his own record look poor.
Federer had no business being in the French Open semi-finals again, the oldest at a Grand Slam in 28 years.
He had skipped the clay season for the last two seasons and had pulled out of his last clay court tournament in Rome. In the quarter-final against Stan Wawrinka, he squandered 16 of 18 break points. Against the same player who thrashed him in 2015 at the same stage. He was insipid in bouts and not 100% in some big points.
But no one tells Federer what he shouldn’t be able to do. Because when he finds a way to win, he finds it with the swift grace no 37-year-old is expected to have on the tennis court.
On Tuesday, gliding and sliding on clay, he seemingly pulled a rabbit out of his hat beating his close friend 7-6(4), 4-6, 7-6(5), 6-4 in three hours and 35 minutes after a rain delay that lasted more than an hour.
The win included many wasted opportunities, almighty shanks that Federer would not miss a few years back, two double faults – the only of the match – while serving for it. But it also had the touch of gold dust, vintage Federer magic – the running, full-stretch volley, defence in a 26-shot rally, the slice that set up a canny forced error, serve and volley on clay.
Crucially, and perhaps a tad ironically, it is his best Slam run in over a year. He was out in the fourth round at US Open and Australian Open and quarters at Wimbledon. But at 37 on a surface considered his weakest, he is in his 44th Grand Slam semi-final, tying with Martina Navratilova for second-most in the Open era.
A topsy-turvy match
But the road, which was seamless in the first four matches where he didn’t drop a set, was anything but in the quarter-final.
“It was a great match, great quality,” Wawrinka was quoted as saying after the match. “But I still believe that I can play better than that and he can play better than that.”
The man has a point. This was not a straight-set crushing like the 2015 one, but then this was not the ‘Stanimal’ at his peak. Climbing back from a world ranking of 263 after two knee surgeries changed his career for the worse, he was slowly getting back at his best. His epic win against Stefanos Tsitsipas had probably taken a toll on him as well.
Yet the 34-year-old Swiss didn’t give a quarter to his old friend. Roaring as he managed big holds, pushing his opponent deeper and deeper on the backhand side and being aggressive from behind the baseline, his power was on full display.
In the first set itself, while Federer lost just five points on serve, he wasted four chances to break and the set went to a tiebreak. That’s when the third seed elevated his game – a sizzling cross-court backhand winner got a thumb up from his opponent as well and he finally clinched it after 50 minutes.
In the second set, Federer’s intensity dropped and it reminded of the Australian Open fourth round match where he lost to Tsitsipas after winning the first set tiebreak. A solitary break from 15-40 down was enough for Wawrinka – who converted his first two break points.
The topsy-turvy third set was the decisive battle. At 3-3 the younger Swiss went 30-0 with an exquisite shot and started conducting the crowd. A tired backhand and fluffed volley gave the 24th seed the break. But Federer got the break right back and squandered set point when Wawrinka was serving to stay in the set.
And then the gears changed. Federer saved his first break points of the match in a crucial nine-minute, five-deuce game that had his opponent kicking the ball in frustration. In the ensuing tiebreak, he scored a golazo of a point and converted his fifth set point.
Wawrinka continued saving break points when play was suspended at 3-3 in the fourth and when they returned, it was a more aggressive Federer who broke and overcame a strange case of jitters while serving for the match.
In the end, the loser finished with 54 winners and eight aces while the winner had 53 winners and five aces. But Wawrinka had 61 unforced errors to Federer’s 49 and more importantly, Federer won 41 points at net to just nine for his opponent. And that attacking tactic on clay made all the difference.
“I feel now I can play pressure free, because what is there to lose? Nothing really,” Federer told NYT before his clay court return. “I haven’t played on clay for three years so maybe for the first time in 15 years I can go to the French and be like, ‘Let’s just see what happens’.”
The man, who has a terrible (to put it mildly) 2-13 record on clay and 0-5 at Roland Garros against Nadal, actually seems excited for the match.
Because in his own words, what is there to lose?
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