Doc: Federer right at home at W&S
MASON – Roger Federer would make a good Cincinnatian. He wins a lot, but he doesn’t make a big deal of it. We don’t like folks who act all full of themselves. Federer is arguably the best men’s tennis player ever. In Cincinnati at least, he’s never lost his modesty.
Our Roger says please and thank you and he appreciates the local way of operating. “The peace and quiet,” he called it Saturday, “especially before going to New York” for the U.S. Open.
“I like the normal lifestyle here. That’s what we’re used to in Switzerland. Slower pace. Easy going. Not hectic. Maybe that’s also what’s helped me to do well here in Cincy,” Federer said.
Maybe that’s why tennis fans here like him as much as anyone who has ever played in the Western & Southern Open. If Federer sticks around for another 20 years, we might actually regard him as a local.
Federer advanced to his seventh Cincinnati final with a straight set win over Andy Murray on Saturday. He will play Novak Djokovic Sunday, No. 2 in the world against No. 1. They played last in the Wimbledon final, Djokovic winning in four sets. Think of us as the Wimbledon of hard courts, minus the New York noise.
The Western & Southern Open is a fantastic event that’s in the business of topping itself on a yearly basis. And succeeding. It’s also the only sporting event in town where you can get a diamond bracelet and a cheeseburger. I don’t want to say this is a swishy affair. But Saturday I saw a Jaguar debating a Mercedes over the merits of a good Bourdeaux.
Which is ironic, because both of the men’s semifinals Saturday were decidedly blue collar. Djokovic overcame a couch session’s worth of issues to beat Alexandr Dolgopolov in three sets. Djokovic lost the first set, then trailed five games to three in the second set, which he won in a tiebreak after he fell behind 3-0.
The world’s best player also overcame an abdominal strain of some sort and a continual spat with his coaches in the stands that resulted in the chair umpire demanding that Djokovic zip it and play.
“The people are here to watch tennis, not listen to you,” the umpire said, to the enthusiastic cheers of the people.
“Sometimes on the court you go through emotions up and down,” Djokovic explained. Coaches “have to tolerate some types of emotional situations that you experience on the court.”
They do?
To his credit, Djokovic won by hanging in there. Deep forehands and some drop shot artistry put Dolgopolov, ranked 66th in the world, in position to pull a stunner. “I managed to dig deep. I was all the time there fighting,” Djokovic said. Or, as Dolgopolov put it, “He plays more careful on the big points. You have to beat him and go for the risk.”
That could be what Federer is thinking, too. Someone asked our adopted tennis son why he’d begun recently playing more at the net. “I did it in practice as a joke,” Federer explained. “Then I did it again and again.
“It can play with the (opponent’s) mind a little bit. I still have to understand when I should do it. I’m happy when I’m doing it and not looking ridiculous up there.”
We’ve been trying to retire our Roger for a few years now. He is 34, and 34 is very old to be playing tennis at anything close to a world-class level. Yet he had no issues with Murray, who is 28, even as he trailed 5-4 in the second set tiebreaker. This is the first tournament Federer has played in more than a month, since the Wimbledon loss to Djokovic. “I’m fresh and ready to go,” he said.
Our Roger tries to make it 7-for-7 Sunday. If he does – or at this point, even if he doesn’t – someone should invite him and his family to play some cornhole at a church festival, while scarfing a coney or several.
The Elder faithful could invite him to speak at their stag. One loyal Cincinnatian to another. He’d know he’d arrived as a local then.