Roger Federer was at his supreme best against Novak Djokovic in the Shanghai Masters
Huge support for Federer
It was difficult to say what rang louder Saturday as Roger Federer took on World No. 1 and two-time defending champion Novak Djokovic. Roger’s booming shots which thudded the back of the court or the roars and cheers of the Shanghai crowd.
The crowd at Shanghai’s Qizhong Forest Sports City Arena were bringing the roof down with their noise and it didn’t require a statistician to tell which of the two players they were biased towards. One could have been even forgiven for assuming the match was being played in Federer’s home nation of Switzerland (well we don’t even know if the Swiss cheer so loudly anyway).
This is all the more interesting since Djokovic was on a 28-match winning streak in China, had won this event for the last 2 years, and only the last Sunday had wrapped up his 5th win at Beijing Open in 6 years.
Roger Magic on display
Shanghai, along with Monte Carlo and Rome, was one of the 3 ATP Masters 1000 events that Roger had never won. With his 7-6 (6), 7-6 (2) win on Sunday over Giles Simon in the final, he has now won one of those.
But what a roller coaster of a ride it has been to get there! In a tournament that saw him make 57 unforced errors against Leonardo Mayer in the second round and fighting off five match points before finally pulling through well after midnight. A tournament that saw him play a dream of a match here against the World No. 1 Novak, who had got the better of Roger on many occasions in the recent past, the most heart-breakingly so in the Wimbledon final this year.
The match saw Federer produce some of the best serve-and-volley tennis that he has produced over the last few years. They say that a player’s opponents and rivals are the best testimony for their form and level of play. If that is true, we must listen in to what Djokovic had to say after the match.
“He was the better player”
"He played from first to last point a very, very good match," a dejected Djokovic said.
"I think I did not play too bad. It's just that he played everything he wanted to play," he said, calling it "the perfect match" from Federer. "This tonight is definitely one of the best matches he has played against me, that's for sure", he added.
"I think he's playing as good as ever. I think age does not really matter in his case," Djokovic said.
Over the week, Shanghai was witness to the genius in full swing as he played spectacular tennis throughout, and ended with his 4th tournament win of the year after wins at Halle, Dubai and Cincinnati. He also climbs to No. 2 in the ATP Rankings over the injury-beleaguered Rafael Nadal and his put himself firmly in place for the year-end ATP World Tour Finals in London.
The Serve and Volley game worked
The 17-time Grand Slam singles champion served strongly throughout against Novak, with a key highlight being him sending down four aces to win a game in the first set. He broke serve in the fifth game of the first set after a couple of unforced errors by Djokovic. And in a fantastic break back to the Federer we witnessed so often in the past decade, he played amazing serve-and-volley, with 35 forays to the net, winning 20 points with a series of precise volleys.
Djokovic did keep fighting till the very end, as we have come to expect of the Serb No. 1. The resilience was on full display as held his serve in the 5th game of second set in a game that lasted 8 and a half minutes and saw Roger asking some tough questions.
The Serb resistance broke ultimately and Federer held his nerve from 15-30 down in game 10 of the second set, hitting a forehand winner, an ace and a backhand volley at the net to win in 95 minutes.
