Rafael Nadal, after battling injuries in recent years and rarely being a threat in big tournaments, fighting his way through to the final. Any of these storylines would have provided excitement and magic in a Grand Slam.
This Australian Open had all of the above only for those stories to be toppled by Roger Federer, who triumphed after a 6 month layoff due to injury by beating his nemesis Rafael Nadal in an instant classic!
Roger Federer has, over the years, with the possible exception of Pat Rafter, become my favourite tennis player of all time. He's exceptionally exciting to watch, charismatic, well mannered and respectful of the game's history and traditions. It's been a great ride, barracking for the upperdog has been a rare experience for me in following individual sports and it's definitely has its pluses. I can count on regular victories, fine performances and not too many heartbreaks. Certainly it's been a lot more rewarding following Roger Federer than watching Greg Norman contend in over 20 majors whilst winning 2 and blowing more opportunities than I care to remember.
After winning Wimbledon in 2012, Roger followed up with a weak 2013 that seemingly signified the beginning of the end of his time at the top. Roger had other ideas, explaining that a sore back had hindered his play and hiring Stefan Edberg to implement a makeover on his game. Stefan persuaded Roger to change to a larger racquet and convinced him that net rushing remained a viable approach given the strength of Roger's attacking game.
The results were impressive, with an inaugural Davis Cup victory in 2014, along with some impressive Slam performances capped by 3 finals across 2014-15, all of them against Novak Djokovic, with the closest being the 2014 Wimbledon final where he held break point late in the 5th set. 2016, however, saw Roger injure his knee bathing his daughters in Melbourne and he never fully recovered, eventually shutting down his season after Wimbledon in order to get fully fit for 2017.
So, suitably regenerated, he arrived here and as the #17 seed, was no longer protected by the high ranking he usually enjoyed as an elite player. His draw meant Thomas Berdych in the 3rd round, Kei Nishikori in the 4th, Andy Murray in the quarters, Stan Wawrinka in the semis and Novak Djokovic in the final! Not surprisingly, I didn't harbour any illusions about this fortnight, not bothering to watch his opening two rounds against qualifiers.
I was starting to get excited here because I knew that Zverev's serve-volley game, as well as he was playing, matched up perfectly to Roger's versatility and shotmaking wizardry and that he would, in all likelihood, have a stress free path to the semi finals. And so it proved. I was also noting, with a certain sense of foreboding, the magnificent performance of his old rival Rafael Nadal in dispatching Alexander Zverev, the younger and higher ranked brother of giant killer Mischa over five torrid sets.
So, the semi finals it was to be. There was a time when Stan Wawrinka was an opponent that a Federer fan looked forward to. There would be some great rallies, the odd wonderful backhand from Stan and absolutely no chance that Roger would lose. But while the head to head still strongly favoured Federer, Stan had creamed him in their last Slam meeting in the 2014 French Open while subsequently demonstrating his considerable skills on faster hard courts by winning the US Open last year with some wonderfully tough tennis. Any man who can take the best of Novak Djokovic and emerge triumphant is a man to be feared. The Stanimal would not be going gently into that dark night or any other.
This was another ripper of a match. Federer won a tight first set, looked good in the 2nd, Stan appeared hurt and responded in the way we've come to expect from him in recent years, hitting harder and stronger and capturing the next two sets. Federer had to dig deep and play some great tennis to bludgeon the match from Stan's grasp and advance to the Australian Open final! At this point I was more pumped than freshly made car tyres.
There was just one little thing taking the air out of those Roger powered sails. 24 hours later, the Roger slayer set about the entree to his main course by taking on Gregor Dimitrov. Gregor's known as being a slightly inferior Roger clone, possessing a big serve, strong forehand and athletic movement to go with an elegant one handed backhand. He doesn't have the imagination and versatility of Roger but he's a strong player and he absolutely gave it to Rafa on this night! For the best part of 5 hours he hammered away at Nadal, pumping backhands up the line, nailing strong serves and blasting big forehands behind them. Ultimately one of the best performances of Gregor's career was not enough to slay this warrior with Rafa's ability to open up the court with his wicked swinging serve into the backhand being a key factor in his victory. I really wanted Dimitrov to win, not because he couldn't beat Roger but because I was in mortal fear of Rafa and his ability to control the game and win the big points.
So, with hope in my heart but doubt in my brain, I awaited the final of the 2017 Australian Open, the renewal of the greatest rivalry in the modern game at the highest level there is. The major problems for Roger Federer against Rafael Nadal over the years have been the damage that Rafa has done to his backhand, repeatedly forcing defensive shots which allowed Rafa to stay in the rally until he got the chance to counterpunch combined with Roger's awful record on break points against Nadal, both when trying to break serve and hold serve. In most of their matches the points tally was close and the sets lost were usually closely fought but the big points kept going to Nadal.
So I was in for a surprise when early on in the final, Roger Federer took hold of some backhands and absolutely cracked them back over the net, both cross court and down the line. The hope had been that Roger might be able to get to net regularly and assert himself up there but Nadal's depth rendered that a rare option. This was a duel that had to be won from the baseline. Empowered by his stinging backhand, Roger was able to get a break and serve out the first set! Hope was kindled.
The 2nd set quickly dashed those as Rafa grabbed the early break and carried it through. One set all. Given their history, my expectation was for Nadal to carry on and take the match. It certainly wasn't for Roger to spend half an hour treating Rafa like Dimitrov and absolutely smashing him six games to one in the third set! Once again, the backhand was stinging Nadal, getting Roger on top in the rallies and giving him the opportunity to strike winners. Two sets to one, all of a sudden, this was one very serious tennis match. Just one set. One set. One fucking set and I don't care about Roger Federer's future tennis success.
It wasn't to be the fourth set, however. As per the 2nd set, Roger's serve went down early and Nadal, playing with his usual dynamic brand of awe-inspiring skill and relentless intensity, was able to draw level and send this most unexpected of finals to a deciding set.
I hadn't experienced tension to this level in a tennis match since Pat Rafter went deep into the 5th set against Goran Ivanisevic in the 2001 Wimbledon final! Roger's first serve went missing in the opening game of the decider and Rafa broke for 1-0. Given Roger's inability to break back earlier, I wasn't feeling good. Fierce games for 2-0 and 3-1 didn't raise my optimism any. Roger was playing the better tennis, at 3-2 in favour of Nadal the winner count for the set was 14-6 in Roger's favour! But he wasn't winning the critical points, like always when playing Nadal. Someone wake me when the story changes.
In the sixth game, Roger created some more chances, which Nadal negated, only to miss some forehands and give the break back! The story had changed. WAKE UP! OMFG, it's 3-3 in the 5th! Which, 60 seconds and 4 dominating points later, was 4-3 Federer! Promptly followed by two more strong points and a double fault and all of a sudden, Roger Federer had triple break point to get a chance to serve for the title!!! Nevertheless, A screaming crowd, an opponent on a roll and enormous pressure are not enough to cause Rafael Nadal to crumble, if you plan on winning a match against him, you are going to have it to bludgeon it off him. Three near perfect points later, it was deuce.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, at this point we must interrupt the dramatic re-telling of one of the all time great Grand Slam finals to bring you THE RALLY where Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal played out the match in microcosm. Twenty six full blooded strokes of the highest pace, placement and power followed, with both men gaining the ascendancy and having it taken from them by their opponent's ability to to respond to great shots sent their way under pressure by shooting back a better one. Finally, stretched out on the forehand by a classic Nadal two-hander, Roger reached wide and drilled it down the line, over the high part of the net, for a blazing winner to bring up another break point.
Roger Federer has, over the years, with the possible exception of Pat Rafter, become my favourite tennis player of all time. He's exceptionally exciting to watch, charismatic, well mannered and respectful of the game's history and traditions. It's been a great ride, barracking for the upperdog has been a rare experience for me in following individual sports and it's definitely has its pluses. I can count on regular victories, fine performances and not too many heartbreaks. Certainly it's been a lot more rewarding following Roger Federer than watching Greg Norman contend in over 20 majors whilst winning 2 and blowing more opportunities than I care to remember.
After winning Wimbledon in 2012, Roger followed up with a weak 2013 that seemingly signified the beginning of the end of his time at the top. Roger had other ideas, explaining that a sore back had hindered his play and hiring Stefan Edberg to implement a makeover on his game. Stefan persuaded Roger to change to a larger racquet and convinced him that net rushing remained a viable approach given the strength of Roger's attacking game.
The results were impressive, with an inaugural Davis Cup victory in 2014, along with some impressive Slam performances capped by 3 finals across 2014-15, all of them against Novak Djokovic, with the closest being the 2014 Wimbledon final where he held break point late in the 5th set. 2016, however, saw Roger injure his knee bathing his daughters in Melbourne and he never fully recovered, eventually shutting down his season after Wimbledon in order to get fully fit for 2017.
So, suitably regenerated, he arrived here and as the #17 seed, was no longer protected by the high ranking he usually enjoyed as an elite player. His draw meant Thomas Berdych in the 3rd round, Kei Nishikori in the 4th, Andy Murray in the quarters, Stan Wawrinka in the semis and Novak Djokovic in the final! Not surprisingly, I didn't harbour any illusions about this fortnight, not bothering to watch his opening two rounds against qualifiers.
However, being a Federer fan meant turning up for his meeting with Berdych. I'm not sure what I was expecting but what I got was three sublime sets of tennis as Federer took Berdych apart in the best performance I had seen from him since he worked a similar spell on Andy Murray in their 2015 Wimbledon semi final. Berdych played quite well, not that it mattered. It crossed my mind that if he kept playing like this he might go deeper than I had anticipated as I didn't see anyway Nishikori could beat him on that form.
Two days later Nishikori played well and while Federer didn't play as well as he had against Berdych he had enough quality of play along with sufficient energy in the tank to take him out over five entertaining sets and advance to his inevitable quarter final meeting with Andy Murray. Only it wasn't inevitable and it wasn't Murray because the barely known journeyman Mischa Zverev had put together a serve volleying clinic par excellence to remove Murray from the equation and put him on a plane home!
I was starting to get excited here because I knew that Zverev's serve-volley game, as well as he was playing, matched up perfectly to Roger's versatility and shotmaking wizardry and that he would, in all likelihood, have a stress free path to the semi finals. And so it proved. I was also noting, with a certain sense of foreboding, the magnificent performance of his old rival Rafael Nadal in dispatching Alexander Zverev, the younger and higher ranked brother of giant killer Mischa over five torrid sets.
So, the semi finals it was to be. There was a time when Stan Wawrinka was an opponent that a Federer fan looked forward to. There would be some great rallies, the odd wonderful backhand from Stan and absolutely no chance that Roger would lose. But while the head to head still strongly favoured Federer, Stan had creamed him in their last Slam meeting in the 2014 French Open while subsequently demonstrating his considerable skills on faster hard courts by winning the US Open last year with some wonderfully tough tennis. Any man who can take the best of Novak Djokovic and emerge triumphant is a man to be feared. The Stanimal would not be going gently into that dark night or any other.
This was another ripper of a match. Federer won a tight first set, looked good in the 2nd, Stan appeared hurt and responded in the way we've come to expect from him in recent years, hitting harder and stronger and capturing the next two sets. Federer had to dig deep and play some great tennis to bludgeon the match from Stan's grasp and advance to the Australian Open final! At this point I was more pumped than freshly made car tyres.
There was just one little thing taking the air out of those Roger powered sails. 24 hours later, the Roger slayer set about the entree to his main course by taking on Gregor Dimitrov. Gregor's known as being a slightly inferior Roger clone, possessing a big serve, strong forehand and athletic movement to go with an elegant one handed backhand. He doesn't have the imagination and versatility of Roger but he's a strong player and he absolutely gave it to Rafa on this night! For the best part of 5 hours he hammered away at Nadal, pumping backhands up the line, nailing strong serves and blasting big forehands behind them. Ultimately one of the best performances of Gregor's career was not enough to slay this warrior with Rafa's ability to open up the court with his wicked swinging serve into the backhand being a key factor in his victory. I really wanted Dimitrov to win, not because he couldn't beat Roger but because I was in mortal fear of Rafa and his ability to control the game and win the big points.
So, with hope in my heart but doubt in my brain, I awaited the final of the 2017 Australian Open, the renewal of the greatest rivalry in the modern game at the highest level there is. The major problems for Roger Federer against Rafael Nadal over the years have been the damage that Rafa has done to his backhand, repeatedly forcing defensive shots which allowed Rafa to stay in the rally until he got the chance to counterpunch combined with Roger's awful record on break points against Nadal, both when trying to break serve and hold serve. In most of their matches the points tally was close and the sets lost were usually closely fought but the big points kept going to Nadal.
So I was in for a surprise when early on in the final, Roger Federer took hold of some backhands and absolutely cracked them back over the net, both cross court and down the line. The hope had been that Roger might be able to get to net regularly and assert himself up there but Nadal's depth rendered that a rare option. This was a duel that had to be won from the baseline. Empowered by his stinging backhand, Roger was able to get a break and serve out the first set! Hope was kindled.
The 2nd set quickly dashed those as Rafa grabbed the early break and carried it through. One set all. Given their history, my expectation was for Nadal to carry on and take the match. It certainly wasn't for Roger to spend half an hour treating Rafa like Dimitrov and absolutely smashing him six games to one in the third set! Once again, the backhand was stinging Nadal, getting Roger on top in the rallies and giving him the opportunity to strike winners. Two sets to one, all of a sudden, this was one very serious tennis match. Just one set. One set. One fucking set and I don't care about Roger Federer's future tennis success.
It wasn't to be the fourth set, however. As per the 2nd set, Roger's serve went down early and Nadal, playing with his usual dynamic brand of awe-inspiring skill and relentless intensity, was able to draw level and send this most unexpected of finals to a deciding set.
I hadn't experienced tension to this level in a tennis match since Pat Rafter went deep into the 5th set against Goran Ivanisevic in the 2001 Wimbledon final! Roger's first serve went missing in the opening game of the decider and Rafa broke for 1-0. Given Roger's inability to break back earlier, I wasn't feeling good. Fierce games for 2-0 and 3-1 didn't raise my optimism any. Roger was playing the better tennis, at 3-2 in favour of Nadal the winner count for the set was 14-6 in Roger's favour! But he wasn't winning the critical points, like always when playing Nadal. Someone wake me when the story changes.
In the sixth game, Roger created some more chances, which Nadal negated, only to miss some forehands and give the break back! The story had changed. WAKE UP! OMFG, it's 3-3 in the 5th! Which, 60 seconds and 4 dominating points later, was 4-3 Federer! Promptly followed by two more strong points and a double fault and all of a sudden, Roger Federer had triple break point to get a chance to serve for the title!!! Nevertheless, A screaming crowd, an opponent on a roll and enormous pressure are not enough to cause Rafael Nadal to crumble, if you plan on winning a match against him, you are going to have it to bludgeon it off him. Three near perfect points later, it was deuce.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, at this point we must interrupt the dramatic re-telling of one of the all time great Grand Slam finals to bring you THE RALLY where Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal played out the match in microcosm. Twenty six full blooded strokes of the highest pace, placement and power followed, with both men gaining the ascendancy and having it taken from them by their opponent's ability to to respond to great shots sent their way under pressure by shooting back a better one. Finally, stretched out on the forehand by a classic Nadal two-hander, Roger reached wide and drilled it down the line, over the high part of the net, for a blazing winner to bring up another break point.
Interestingly, Nadal sent just 2 shots to the Federer backhand in the duel, one of which ended up being crushed crosscourt and nearly finished the rally right there and then. Nadal was clearly unwilling to go all out against the Federer backhand, a virtually unprecedented occurrence on a big point between the two players. It is a measure of Nadal's mental strength, that despite losing a pivotal point like this, despite being challenged by his opponent's unexpectedly lethal backhand, he still saved the break point with a thunderous serve down the middle to the forehand.
So Roger needed to being up break point again, and with a series of ripping backhands opening up the court for another big forehand to force the error he did precisely that. Facing another pivotal break point Rafa sensibly decided it was time to go back to his best serve, firing a big serve wide to the Federer backhand. Roger ripped it crosscourt and Nadal had no chance of getting the return back into play! 5-3!!
If I ever imagined this moment, I would have anticipated that I would be screaming and yelling, reaching a level of ultimate excitement. And I did yell a "Come on!" but then I paused, surprised by the blurred vision I was experiencing. Clearly, I must have left an onion lying around the television somewhere. Perhaps Roger paused on the verge of the summit as well, for his service game started badly and he quickly found himself facing two break back points. Nobody beats Rafael Nadal without a fight. Ace succeeded by massive and brave inside-out forehand to level up was followed by another devastating first serve and it was match point. Which, naturally, was saved, despite a successful overrule to a double fault call.
So Roger needed to being up break point again, and with a series of ripping backhands opening up the court for another big forehand to force the error he did precisely that. Facing another pivotal break point Rafa sensibly decided it was time to go back to his best serve, firing a big serve wide to the Federer backhand. Roger ripped it crosscourt and Nadal had no chance of getting the return back into play! 5-3!!
If I ever imagined this moment, I would have anticipated that I would be screaming and yelling, reaching a level of ultimate excitement. And I did yell a "Come on!" but then I paused, surprised by the blurred vision I was experiencing. Clearly, I must have left an onion lying around the television somewhere. Perhaps Roger paused on the verge of the summit as well, for his service game started badly and he quickly found himself facing two break back points. Nobody beats Rafael Nadal without a fight. Ace succeeded by massive and brave inside-out forehand to level up was followed by another devastating first serve and it was match point. Which, naturally, was saved, despite a successful overrule to a double fault call.
Another ace set up a 2nd match point! This time, a beautifully placed swinging serve down the middle drew a short reply which was despatched by a forehand whipped onto the line and, after a delay for a challenge, it was over! Roger Federer, the 18 time Grand Slam champion, was now the Australian Open champion after defeating his ultimate nemesis, Rafael Nadal!!!!!
I was completely stoked and remain so, writing this piece four days later. I just wasn't expecting it at all, I hadn't totally given up on another Federer Slam win due to his excellent play over the last 3 years but to get it here after 6 months off, with a torrid draw topped by facing Nadal in the final?? I never contemplated such a scenario!
All Hail Roger Federer! I never thought he could win a Slam in a manner that would top the 2009 French Open. But he just did!
I was completely stoked and remain so, writing this piece four days later. I just wasn't expecting it at all, I hadn't totally given up on another Federer Slam win due to his excellent play over the last 3 years but to get it here after 6 months off, with a torrid draw topped by facing Nadal in the final?? I never contemplated such a scenario!
All Hail Roger Federer! I never thought he could win a Slam in a manner that would top the 2009 French Open. But he just did!
* I wrote this in 2017 but, for some reason never posted it. I came back to it recently and realised that it is a good piece of writing with lots of energy and it thoroughly deserves to be published. So, to celebrate the current Australian Open and Roger's retirement, I have published it now.
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