Sometimes, I close my eyes, and I can still see it.
I remember as if it just happend a minute ago, a moment indelibly etched into my memory. The bright yellow tennis ball - perhaps kissed by fate - drawing impossibly close to the lines and falling barely six inches within the chalk-lined border framing the court. Almost as if plucked out of the air and placed in that very spot by the hand of God. It skips off the well-trimmed grass and smacks into the back wall - fait accompli. An impossible shot.
Yeah, I can still see it.
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It was July 6th, 2008. The famed Centre Court at Wimbledon. The men's final between Rafael Nadal and five-time defending champion, Roger Federer.
Entering the match, the stalworth Federer Empire had, for the first time, shown some visible cracks. To wit, in January, Novak Djokovic had swept away Roger in straight sets at the Australian Open semifinals - a tournament that Federer had taken in three out of the previous four years. During the spring hard court swing in the U.S., Feds was dispatched with surprising ease by two Americans that theretofore had been his perenniel whipping boys: Mardy Fish (at Indian Wells) and Andy Roddick (at Miami). Tennis fans and pundits began to whisper that maybe Federer had lost his dominant grip on men's tennis; perhaps he had slowed just a half-step, or maybe *gasp* the rest of the men's field had closed the gap.
Those whispers quickly loudened into deafening roars in June, when at Roland Garros, Rafael Nadal shellacked Federer 6-1, 6-3, 6-0 in the finals - the worst defeat of Roger's Grand Slam career. After that match, tennis legend Bjorn Borg, himself a five-time champion at Wimbledon, predicted, as did many others, that Rafa would finally end Federer's winning streak at the All-England Club, after losing to Federer in the previous two finals. As Djokovic's mother had brashly proclaimed after her son's Australian Open triumph, "The King [was] finally dead."
Just a fortnight after his Paris debacle, Federer found comfort in the familiar confines of the All-England Club and the hallowed grounds of Wimbledon as he sought to regain the form that had propelled him to 12 Grand Slam titles in less than five years. Federer entered Wimbledon on a 59 match winning streak on grass courts, including the last 34 matches he had played at the Championships. With a victory, he had the chance to break a tie with Bjorn Borg with a sixth consecutive Wimbledon title, to bring himself within 1 Grand Slam title of tying Pete Sampras's all-time record, and most importantly, to silence the critics who were already proclaiming that there was a New World Order in men's tennis.
Federer indeed regained his form as the tournament progressed, plowing through his half of the draw like a chainsaw going through butter. Upstart Mario Ancic, the last man to beat Federer at Wimbledon? Go home. Former champion Lleyton Hewitt? Grab a seat. Two-time Grand Slam champion Marat Safin? Please take a party favor with you on your way out. Just like that, six up, six down. 18 consecutive sets of what would otherwise be described as efficiently brutal tennis, if not for the elegance and artfulness of the man delivering the punishment: a modern day da Vinci with a 78 by 27 foot grass canvass and a 90 square inch carbon-graphite paint brush.
His opponent in the final, of course, had already been pre-ordained. It could not have been anyone but Nadal - the Joe Frazier to Roger's Ali, and his opponent in the previous two finals. Rafa came in sporting a 11-6 lifetime record against Roger, including a 4-2 advantage in Grand Slam finals. But never had Nadal beaten Federer in a Grand Slam final outside of Paris, and certainly not at Wimbledon, Federer's home away from home - his self professed favorite tournament. A victory by Nadal would not merely signal that the Federer Empire was starting to crack, but rather, that it was beginning to crumble completely.
The eyes of the tennis world were fixed on Centre Court that July afternoon as Nadal absconded with the first two sets 6-4, 6-4 in the best-of-five encounter. Federer had not played poorly; in fact, he had been up a break of serve in both sets, but had squandered both chances with unsteady play at inopportune times. A rain-delay in the middle of the third set seemed to calm him down and he managed to control the third set tie-breaker to trim Nadal's lead to 2 sets to 1. The fourth set went by with each player holding serve with little trouble. At 6-all, it was onto another tie-break. First one to 7 points takes the set - win by two.
Nadal raced out to a 4-1 advantage, and then quickly to 5-2. But with two points on his serve to win the title, Nadal began to show his first sign of nerves. A double fault and a shaky backhand into the bottom of the net made it 5-4, Nadal. Federer won the next two points on his serve to earn a set point at 6-5 to level the match at two sets apiece. Unfortunately, Feds sprayed a forehand wide to give Nadal life at 6-6. Another Federer forehand error gave Nadal his first match point at 7-6. A chance to convincingly end Federer's reign with a stunning coup-d'tat.
Federer denied Nadal with a swift service winner wide to the ad-court. At 7-7, Federer hit a pair of laser beam forehands, the latter of which was directed deep into Nadal's forehand corner while Nadal was out of position, some 12 feet behind the baseline. Sensing his opportunity, Federer pounced like a lion and came to the net behind what surely must have seemed like a winning shot. Nadal had other ideas. On a full sprint to the corner, Nadal, now a full 16 feet behind the baseline and with Federer rapidly approaching the net to put away a decisive volley, desperately slapped at the ball with a flick of his powerful left wrist. The ball exploded off of Nadal's string like a BB pellet and skimmed over the net and around the out-stretched racket of a lunging - and stunned - Federer. The crowd exploded into a raucous din. Match point, Nadal.
A half a world away in Glendale, California, as I sat on my couch desperately clutching my K-factor Tour 90 racket, hoping to somehow transfer all of my chi and good karma to Roger, I knew at that instant that the match was over. Nadal had driven the final, symbolic stake through the heart of the Federer era. And he had done it with force and style. It was truly one of the most incredible tennis shots ever struck. Now all was left was the final nail in the coffin. For Feds and his fans, it was finally over. Everyone in the stadium, and everyone watching on TV could sense it.
As Nadal lined up on the baseline to serve, to deliver the final blow to make it official, a tremendous sadness washed over me - the helpless feeling associated with a loss of innocence. Father Time had finally caught up with my indomitable hero. He had finally met the opponent that he couldn't beat. Wile E. Coyote had finally caught the Roadrunner. And the weight of the world, along with all of his doubters, were about to buckle the knees of The Mighty Fed.
At 8-7, with his second match point, Nadal served to Federer with a slicing lefty serve that began curving into Federer's body. Federer chopped it back with a high backhand, while Nadal stormed to the net. The ball dropped meekly within 2 feet of the service line, right in the path of Rafa, who was charging forward like a bull preparing to gore a wounded matador. With a violent swing of his light-weight frame, Nadal ripped a topspin forehand into Federer's backhand corner and continued swiftly to a tactical position at the net.
As the ball hurtled toward the sideline, Federer, on the full-run, had to make a snap decision within milliseconds. Cross-court, or down the line? Most tennis pros will tell you that in a situation where you have to hit a passing shot around your opponent while he is coming to the net, it is most prudent to hit the shot cross-court. The reason is two-fold. First, hitting a shot cross-court from the backhand corner allows you to hit the ball over the center of the net, where it is 6 inches lower than it is on the sideline (36 to 42). Second, hitting the ball on a diagnol of the court gives you a higher margin for error, as you have a longer distance to hit the ball. The alternative, to go down the line on a shot of that difficulty from the backhand corner over the highest part of the net, is extremely high-risk by comparison.
Therefore, given the magnitude of the situation - down match point during the final of Wimbledon to his biggest rival - it obviously made most sense to go cross-court with a passing shot. Federer, however, defying all logic, glided to his backhand corner, about 8 feet behind the baseline, and with preternatural ability, ever so adroitly flicked a backhand passing shot down the line. The effortlessness with which he struck the ball belied the devastating result. The ball popped off his strings as if shot by a cannon, screamed over the perilously high part of the net, and landed safely in the opposite corner, some 80 feet from where it originally left Federer's racket. A singularly spectacular and incredible play.
In fact, it was the gutsiest shot I had ever seen:
Unfortunately, few will remember this shot. Most people choose to dwell on what happened afterwards. It is well-documented, certainly. Federer went on to take the fourth set and force a decisive fifth. After battling heroically for another 90 minutes and as darkness descended over the All-England club, Federer finally succumbed 9-7 in the fifth set, in what would go down as the greatest tennis match ever played.
But for me, this shot represents a seminal moment in Federer's career. In defeat, he had displayed more courage and grit than he had in any of his previous 12 Grand Slam victories. He had been pushed to the absolute brink, and he had fought back with a lionheart - the Heart of a Champion. He had shown the world an incredible grace under intense fire. But more importantly, I think he discovered something about himself in that moment. With his world crumbling around him, he had stepped through the inferno and had come out clean on the other side.
Many people figured the Wimbledon loss signalled a changing of the guard - a requiem to Federer's dominance. But, oh, how they were wrong. Federer, of course, bounced back to take three out of the next four Grand Slams, pushing his career total to 15, and cementing his status as the Greatest Ever.
Coincidence? I doubt it.
