Once again on Sunday Federer fans were treated to a masterclass display by our Maestro as he won a record 9th Halle title and his 92nd overall. You'd think that after so many that it would start to get boring or routine after a while, but that is so far from the truth. And looking at his happy face with his trophy, you would think it was one of his first.
It was one of those matches where he was simply in his groove. Sure, Zverev didn't play his best, but much of that was due to the fact that Roger didn't allow him to. Watching him play when he's in this mode is without a doubt one of the most beautiful in sport. The variety of shots he comes up with, his incredibly graceful movement on court, and the ease with which he does it never gets old. But of course, anyone reading this blog is intensely aware of all of that, so I don't need to go on, though we do need to be extremely appreciative to still be able to watch this level of play at 35 years old.
After Roger's surprise loss in the first round of Stuttgart I wasn't necessarily nervous, but I couldn't help but wonder what our expectations should be after the 10 week break. Just because he had an absolutely incredible dream comeback after his 6 months off, that doesn't mean it will happen again. As one of my twitter friends reminded me, he could very easily have been ranked around 30 after Australia if he had lost early, which wouldn't have been surprising after such a long break. Instead he completely spoiled us by winning three prestigious tournaments, putting the locker room on notice that he's still a force to be reckoned with.
Still, though, what should our expectations really be? All of a sudden he is considered by many to be the favorite to win Wimbledon again. Whether that helps or hurts him, I don't know, or if it makes any difference at all. Of course a good draw would help, but look at the "quarter of death" draw he had in Indian Wells and what he did with that! I think it really depends mostly on himself. When he's playing the way we know he can, when he's confident, aggressive, and serving well, he almost certainly will win any match he plays, especially on his special grass surface. The question is, of course, will he?
I'm trying not to "expect" him to win, or to feel like it's not successful unless he does. But though my mind tells me those things, and that he has already given us so much by winning in Australia, my heart knows how disappointed I will be if he doesn't win. However, I'm going to try to enjoy every single moment of watching him the next couple weeks on the hallowed tennis grounds of Wimbledon, and I know he will be loving every moment.
It has been way too long since I have done a post, thanks to some health issues I have been experiencing. But tennis goes on and I thought I would check in before the great Wimbledon begins.
Of course, our hopes that Federer would go deep at Roland Garros this year was cut short when he unexpectedly lost in the 4th round, but I'm not a clay fan anyway and was so very ready to move onto grass. Roger had pressure on him at his beloved Halle, being the only title he had to defend from his depressing 2013 season, but he was up to the task, playing well to hold his up his 7th trophy there.
So here we go into Wimbledon, a tournament that was crazy last year with many unexpected losses, including the one that broke many hearts, Federer's second round loss to Stakhovsky. But this is a new year with a healthy Roger, and he realizes as much as anyone that his chances for winning majors gets less as time goes by, so this is a perfect opportunity to grab that elusive #18. In fact, not only would it be #18 for majors, but it would be Wimbledon #8 and title #80. Given that his favorite number is 8, with his birthday being 8/8/81, it seems like the peRFect situation.
The draw is out now and Roger appears to have a pretty decent one for a change, other than the potential difficulty against Julien Benneteau in round 2, who has beaten him a couple times. I feel that Roger will be highly motivated for Wimbledon this year, though, and that he is going to do very well. Hopefully I'm not setting myself up for disappointment.
I will keep this short and sweet, but just wanted to write something after so long and I will try to do much better during this exciting fortnight of tennis.
Phew - I admit to feeling a great amount of relief right now after watching Roger Federer lose the first set in his semifinal match in Halle against good buddy Tommy Haas, only to come back to win it in three. I was getting quite frustrated in the first set watching Roger dump it into the net way too many times, wasting break point opportunities, and generally just not playing as well as I had hoped. It didn't feel like Tommy was doing anything special, just playing solid and allowing his opponent to make errors. I wasn't feeling ultra confident that Federer could turn it around after seeing his puzzling loss to Tsonga last week. But this is a different week and a different surface and he was able to do just that - cut down his errors, make a few more winners, and watch Haas begin to mount his own self destruction, including a surprising amount of double faults.
In spite of Roger's delicious play in his double bagel win in the quarterfinals (only the second of his career), sometimes I think the easy matches can work against him when he has to immediately go play against a top opponent. In my low-level but frequent club level play I have seen how I can gain a lot of confidence by beating someone who is either having an off day or not as strong of a player and then in my next match play against someone where the ball comes off their racquet differently and feel like I have no answers with errors creeping in that weren't there before, so I can understand how those things can happen. I don't like to think, however, that those at the very top have to deal with those same issues and it's frustrating to watch the level of play change so drastically from one day to the next. And when it's my tennis hero I don't want to see the humanness finding its way in.
Regardless of the level of play, however, with certainly more errors than we like to see, a win is a win and Federer is now into his second final of the year with a great chance to claim his first title of the year against Mikhail Youzhny, who he has a 14-0 record against. I don't think we should just automatically pencil in the win, however. Youzhny has been playing some great tennis this week, easily beating Richard Gasquet 6-3 6-2 to get to the final. The fact that Roger has been unable to cross this barrier of tying John McEnroe's record at 77 titles could be in his head a little bit, so I would expect it to be a tight match in the final in spite of some very convincing wins in the past against Youzhny.
Hopefully, though, it will be a happy day for Federer and his fans to be able to claim his first title of 2013, which could then propel him into a much better run for the second half of the year.
It's grass season! I must admit to feeling very relieved to get off that dirty clay stuff and onto the lush beautiful green. I'm not a big clay fan and though of course I watch the tournaments, I am always very happy when it's over. Ok, confession time - I didn't even do a post on the French Open winners. Though I was very happy for Serena and the Bryan Brothers to finally have success there after so many years, I am frankly just tired of Nadal winning it every single year. If conditions for the semifinal would have been what they were on the day of the final I believe Djokovic would have won, but somehow Nadal always gets luck on his side, as well as his obvious amazing talent on clay. Enough of that - onto grass.
Roger Federer won his first grass tournament of the year in Halle, with I am hoping 10 more to follow in succession! It was by no means his best match, with quite a few more errors than any of his fans would want to see. But a win is a win and hopefully he will see what he needs to improve on before his next match on Friday. He looked a bit frustrated with himself after some of the errors so hopefully he will be eager to try to improve his level of play. Assuming he wins his next match he will play either Haas or Gulbis in the semifinals, a challenge either way to be sure. Great preparation for the all important upcoming Wimbledon, however, which is already starting to make me nervous just thinking about. He seems to really enjoy being in Halle so hopefully with this first win under his belt he will be able to relax and find his high level of tennis to thrill his fans there.
Many of the guys are also playing in another tournament at Queens Club in London. They have had quite a bit of rain so far, with Andy Murray not able to finish his first match. Though the rain is frustrating it would be great if they could get it out of the way now with some good weather for at least the first week of Wimbledon. Can't believe it's less than two weeks away!
