As the summer hard-court events got underway, the odds that the players going into the US Open with the greatest head of steam would be Roger Federer and Serena Williams didn’t seem very good. Now, with the last of the big hard-court tuneups concluded, guess who stands atop the heap of US Open contenders?
Roger and Serena. Federer recently turned 33; Williams is hot on his tail in a race she won’t ever win, about to hit the same age at the end of September. Or, if you’re a Williams fan, about the time the champagne high from having won the US Open begins to wear off.
Roger and Serena. A grand total of 34 Grand Slam singles titles, evenly split. The race is on for the bragging rights up on tennis Olympus, because even these two can’t go on forever.
Roger and Serena. The reliables. It’s got the makings of a good action movie. That was amply demonstrated in the two finals at the Western & Southern Open on Sunday. You would almost think that Federer watched Serena’s systematic, 6-4, 6-1 demolition of No. 6 seed Ana Ivanovic and took inspiration from it. He is surely not the kind of dude who would have been under the headphones listening to Macklemore or Black Sabbath.
Ivanovic, sweet soul that she is, smiled during the trophy presentation and began her runner-up acceptance speech by saying, “I think today I just got a lesson in how to serve.” The match lasted barely an hour and two minutes, yet Williams found the time to club a dozen aces. She also won 80 percent of the points when she put her first serve into the correct box. As ESPN’s Chris Evert so succinctly put it, Williams is unbeatable when she makes more winners than unforced errors. Sunday she was 23-11.
If he took notes, Federer made good use of them as he made No. 6 seed David Ferrer his patsy for the 16th consecutive time, beating him 6-3, 1-6, 6-2 in the final. His serve was extremely effective, even in that throwaway second set. He made 65 percent of his first serves and won almost as high a percentage of those points (77 percent) as Serena did.
Ferrer’s entire career as a player aspiring to the highest of all levels was neatly -- and sadly -- summed up in the end of the first set. Serving to stay in it at 4-5, Ferrer played a game that he launched with an unforced inside-out forehand error, after which he smacked two double-faults -- the second at break point.
Federer fell behind 0-40 when he served for the set in the next game. But after a Federer winner, Ferrer made a sloppy backhand error on the second of the three break points and Federer took care of the last one with another winner. Ferrer would have another break point, but Federer saved that one, too -- with his best second serve of the afternoon. He went on to hold on a crosscourt backhand passing shot error.
OK, Federer’s concentration lapsed and Ferrer snatched away the second set. But Ferrer is always tough when playing catch-up, partly because staying ahead demands a lot more poise and confidence than trying to catch up.
Beyond that, Federer kept the match from becoming a track meet. That was partly because he’s found a new use for that backhand that everyone pounds away at nowadays. Instead of risking the unforced error with a big, one-handed, topspin cut, or allowing his opponent to take control of a point by playing a safe slice, Federer more and more uses the slice to get into the net to end the point there -- one way or another.
Federer is playing in a manner that people for years have been saying cannot be done anymore. We’ll see how right they are in a few weeks’ time at the US Open, for Federer has built up a lot of momentum starting at Wimbledon (four consecutive finals, with two wins).
Can it be that the American major will be all about Roger and Serena once again?