By Bill Simons
The greatest player in the history of the game was said to be lucky.
Never mind his resume—17 slams, a record 302 weeks at No. 1—critics noted that the one time Roger Federer won the French Open, a fellow named Nadal was knocked out of the tourney by a zoning Swede.
A clear path before him, Federer then sailed to the title.
And this year, though he is a seemingly ancient 34 years old and hasn’t won a Slam in almost three years, he was blessed with the dreamiest of draws. His nemeses—Nadal, Djokovic and Murray—were all bunched together on the top half, well out of harm’s way.
Sweet! And when he did face a truly challenging foe—Gael Monfils, who had beaten him twice in a row on clay—luck again tapped him on the shoulder. Just when the streaky Frenchman got hot and won the second set of their fourth-round match, dusk descended. Play was suspended, and Monfils never seemed to wake up the next day. “The Rog” streaked to an easy victory and an inviting matchup in the quarterfinals against “brother” Stan Wawrinka, who he has owned.
Though Federer is from the German section of Switzerland and Wawrinka is from the French section, the two are fast friends, and as doubles partners they won the 2008 Olympic gold.
They have known each other since they were teens, they’ve shared a coach, and they practiced together just a couple of days ago.
As you would expect in a nice Swiss relationship, much has been orderly.
Yes, Wawrinka got upset about some testy words from Federer’s wife Mirka during the heat of battle at the ATP finals championships. No worries—Stan and Fed had a brotherly chat, patched up their differences and went out to play the Davis Cup final in front of 27,000 howling Frenchmen. The Swiss duo prevailed.
Similarly, Federer has long prevailed as the alpha man of Alpine tennis. These days, it’s a challenge being a Spanish player in the Nadal era. Similarly, it has rarely been easy for Stan as a Swiss playing in Roger’s shadow. Older, world-renowned and a natural leader, Federer didn’t hesitate to call out Wawrinka for poor singles and doubles play after a bad 2012 Davis Cup loss. Okay, the dynamic here was not the Lone Ranger and Tonto. Wawrinka finally broke out and won the 2014 Aussie Open, and he’s the No. 8 seed at Roland Garros.
Still, Federer went into their quarterfinal with a whopping 16-2 head-to-head advantage. Plus, he had just imposed a bruising, straight-set win over Stan in Rome.
But today, it may have been Federer’s ego that was bruised when his match was relegated to Courte Suzanne Lenglen. There, the French wind blew strong, as if to say, “Good Roger, the tennis gods have been kind with you ’til now, but this is not going to be easy.”
It wasn’t.
On fire from the start, Wawrinka powered his forehand through the wind. He put his well-admired backhand on considerable display and served with unflinching authority.
He broke Roger’s serve early, and went on to win the first set, 6-4.
Amidst a flurry of imposing shots, he captured the second set, 6-3.
The scoreboard had disintegrated on Court Centrale, and now the scoreline was crashing on Lenglen. The sky was falling.
A dream final of Roger vs. Rafa or Novak was suddenly in jeopardy. Stats folks quickly tried to calm jangled nerves. Not to worry, they reminded us. Roger, though aging, was still No. 2. The guy can play.
But Stan didn’t care.
Federer had just won in Istanbul. But Roland Garros is no Turkey.
Roger had battled back to victory nine times when down two sets to none. Just ask Tommy Haas or Alejandro Falla.
But Stan didn’t ask.
It had been 291 Grand Slam matches since Federer, with his adept return game, hadn’t broken his foe’s serve. But Stan was holding with the focused ease of a confident climber ascending an Alpine peak.
Roger was in combat in his 64th straight Slam. But recent Slam losses to Andreas Seppi in Melbourne, Marin Cilic in New York, Novak Djokovic at Wimbledon and last year to Ernests Gulbis in Paris were recalled. Roger still moved with ease, but his dominant confidence had wavered. For all his lilting grace, for all his mind-boggling wins, the days of time have been catching up. The sport’s greatest legend is now in an astounding, seemingly unending, twilight. All of tennis realized that he could be taken down. And so did Roger.
The icon was worried. He scowled, blasted wild backhands and offered frustrated expletives. (Even gleaming ambassadors get to swear.)
All the while, Wawrinka—patient and playing within himself—bent low on volleys and lifted his game high. In the third-set tiebreak, he did what he had been doing all day. He got off to a considerable lead and would not relent. Soon after Federer confronted the ump on a controversial line call, Wawrinka hit a confident volley winner to secure a memorable 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 (4) victory.
The winds of fate seemed to have spoken. On a fateful Tuesday, the scoreboard tumbled, and so did a legend.
