Roger the Great(est of All Time)

If you had asked me a little more than four months ago, when Roger Federer suffered yet another stinging loss to Rafael Nadal in a Grand Slam final (this time at the Australian Open, his first to Nadal at a hard-court major), my thoughts on his chances for winning Roland Garros this year or in years down the road, I probably would have answered, "Bleak." And that would have been optimistic. Never in my life have I been happier to have been proven dead wrong.

That being said, one could not have fairly faulted me at the time for my pessimism. The lefty from Spain, who for four years running had prevented Federer from winning the one Slam missing from his résumé, had also stolen his rival's Wimbledon crown and world number one ranking last summer. By winning Down Under, Nadal seemed virtually unstoppable this spring, and it was a forgone conclusion that he would continue his traditional dominance of the clay-court season, culminating with a record-breaking fifth consecutive victory on the Parisian clay. And for the majority of the spring clay season, the new number one followed the script to a tee. Federer, on the other hand, enjoyed mediocre early hard and clay seasons at best following his emotional meltdown in Melbourne, losing twice each in semifinals to the next two best players in the world, Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic, in addition to an early loss to countryman Stanislas Wawrinka in the clay Masters tournament in Monte Carlo. In short, this was not the Roger Federer of years past, and to many observers it appeared his quest to add to the history books had hit a major speed bump, if not an impenetrable roadblock. He was slowly but surely being written off.

And then came Madrid.

In the year's final clay-court tune-up for Roland Garros (known as the French Open in most of the English-speaking world), Federer was desperate to find some good form heading into the year's second major, and for the first time since his run to the Australian Open final in late January, his game seemed to click as he reached the final with relative ease, dropping just one tiebreak set to Andy Roddick on the way. Greeting him there, of course, was Nadal, who had won three consecutive titles on clay heading into Madrid, including Masters events in Monte Carlo and Rome. Federer, however, took great advantage of Madrid's altitude (which made the court noticeably faster than traditional clay courts) and Nadal's probable fatigue to up his game and pull off a 6-4, 6-4 win against his nemesis for the first time since the 2007 year-ending Masters Cup in Shanghai. While careful not to make overly optimistic predictions about his chances in Paris (he had, after all, beaten Nadal on clay in Hamburg immediately before proceeding to lose to him in the Roland Garros final in 2007), Federer was keen to point out that winning against Nadal on clay and in his home country was "huge."

The first week of Roland Garros 2009 went, with very few exceptions, according to plan. The top men's seeds eased their way to victory, although Federer very nearly found himself down two sets to one against unheralded but competent clay-courter José Acasuso of Argentina in the second round before awaking from his self-induced hypnosis to recover and win in four sets. He was again slightly tested by Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu in the next round but once more found his form and rhythm to close out a fairly comfortable four-set victory. It was on this first Saturday, the same day Federer faced Mathieu, that the tournament saw its first major upset of the men's draw, with fourth seed Djokovic--Federer's expected semifinal opponent--bowing out in the third round. Even this bombshell, however, would be completely overshadowed by what was to come the following day.

Sunday, May 31, 2009. The day started out normally, with top seeds in both the men's and women's draws scoring routine wins in their fourth round matches. As Nadal, who carried a 31-0 record at Roland Garros, took the court against the talented but heretofore inconsistent 23rd seed Robin Söderling of Sweden, who before this tournament had never surpassed the third round of any Grand Slam event and was 0-5 lifetime against Nadal, no one, quite literally no one, even entertained the idea that an upset was possible. No one, that is, except for Söderling himself. In what will certainly go down as one of the biggest shocks in the history of Open Era tennis, if not in the history of the entire sport, the six-foot-four Swede completely dismantled the four-time defending Roland Garros champion in front of a stunned crowd on Court Philippe Chatrier, running him ragged with relentless aggression on point after point until Nadal finally succumbed to his ignominious fate in a fourth-set tiebreak. In the span of just three and a half hours, the tennis world had been turned completely upside down (and not because of the late-breaking but relatively insignificant news that defending women's champion Ana Ivanovic and the doubles tandem of the Williams sisters had been shown the door), and before the dust--or in this case, crushed red brick--had fully settled, all eyes turned rapidly to Federer now that the one man who arguably had prevented him from being the four-time defending champion suddenly no longer barred his way.

Federer, to his credit, refused to fall victim to the traps of expectation and premature celebration set up by the press, politely declining their requests for a declaration of relief that Nadal had been knocked out so early. As he rightly pointed out, more than half of the tournament--four of the seven matches required to win, which he later would remark played like four consecutive finals--remained ahead of him, and in any event he still had yet to taste victory on the final Sunday of Roland Garros--against Nadal or anyone else.

The first of those four matches was his round-of-sixteen encounter with German veteran Tommy Haas. Haas had not defeated Federer in over seven years, although they had enjoyed some spirited encounters in the interim. It quickly became clear that this match would fall into that category as Federer, obviously affected by the pressure induced by events of the previous 24 to 48 hours, struggled to find his form and confidence against a motivated Haas, who before long had taken a two-sets-to-love lead. With Federer serving at 3-4, 30-40 in the third set, the Swiss maestro displayed an extraordinary amount of courage in crushing an inside-out forehand--a shot that had let him down multiple times before in the match--just inches inside the sideline to save a break point and prevent his opponent from serving out the match. From that moment onward, Federer never looked back and proceeded to reel off nine consecutive games before closing out Haas 6-7 (4), 5-7, 6-4, 6-0, 6-2.

His next match, a quarterfinal against eleventh seed Gaël Monfils, the last remaining French hope, promised to be another trying endeavor; their meeting in the semifinal round one year earlier had gone to four sets, and this year, despite nearly having missed the tournament due to concerns about a knee injury, Monfils had played inspired tennis to reach the quarterfinals, making very light work of Roddick in the previous round. Federer, though, was up to the task, and after a closely fought first set that saw the world number two save a set point in a tiebreak, he cruised to victory in straight sets, 7-6 (6), 6-2, 6-4. Indeed, what was most striking about this match was not so much the scoreline as it was the reaction of the Parisian crowd. Monfils had worked them into a frenzy against Roddick just two days earlier, but against Federer, Monfils faced at best a 50-50 split in support, if not an overall pro-Roger audience. If there was any doubt remaining as to who the host nation wanted to see lift the trophy, it was put to rest in this match. After having witnessed Federer come up short in the final for the past three years, the French were eager to cheer the likable multilingual Swiss all the way to the winner's circle this time around. Even so, he would need to win two more matches to get there.

The man who ended up filling the void left by Djokovic turned out to be, fittingly, 20-year-old Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina, a six-foot-six giant who, at number five, was the next most highly ranked player remaining after Federer (third seed Murray had lost in the quarterfinals). The two had faced off five times previously, including this year in Madrid, with del Potro never having come close to winning even a set. The rising star, however, had been a different player in Paris and for the first time came out of the blocks very strong against a sub-par Federer, breaking him twice to win the first set 6-3. Federer slowly found the rhythm on his serve, though, and despite his continued inability to break the del Potro serve, he forced the second set to a tiebreak, which he dominated to level the match. Just when the crowd might have expected Federer to step on the gas and show del Potro the exit, however, the young Argentine raised his level once again as Federer continued to play below his best level, losing the third set after once more suffering two breaks of serve. At the start of the fourth set, with Federer's chances of making it to his fourth successive Roland Garros final looking increasingly imperiled, the Chatrier crowd got firmly behind him and, after a titanic struggle in the fourth game, he finally broke the del Potro serve for the first time in the match to open up a 3-1 lead, which he extended to win the set 6-1. Carrying that momentum into the fifth and decisive set, Federer scored another break to start, and despite surrendering it back to del Potro to level the score at 3-3, Federer immediately broke again and this time held on to his advantage to close out a memorable 3-6, 7-6 (2), 2-6, 6-1, 6-4 win. At long last, he was back in the final with a shot at history.

His opponent in the Sunday final would be, surprisingly but most deservedly, the seemingly unstoppable Söderling. He had put to shame those who dismissed as a fluke his still largely incredulous win over Nadal with further improbable victories over clay-court veterans and top players Nikolay Davydenko and Fernando Gonzalez. Suddenly, the man who had never before been past the third round of a major and had enjoyed his best success on fast indoor surfaces found himself in the final of the world's biggest clay-court event. While Federer approached the final confident in his 9-0 head-to-head record against the Swede, he also knew all too well that Söderling had been playing at a much improved level and would be entering the final with absolutely nothing to lose; in other words, he knew he could not afford to take this last match lightly.

Much to the relief of himself and his fans, Federer was extremely well prepared for the final and it ended up being, somewhat ironically, his most straightforward match of the entire tournament. His serve was firing on all cylinders and he took full advantage of Söderling's early nerves to build a comfortable lead, which helped the thirteen-time Slam champion relax even further. In fact, even with the far from ideal weather conditions--it was cool, windy, and, for the second half of the match, persistently drizzling--the only time at which Federer seemed to temporarily lose focus was when an obviously deranged fan breached security and ran up to him on the court, attempting to place a hat on his head; after what seemed like an eternity, the lunatic was finally tackled and forcibly removed from the stadium after having jumped the net to Söderling's side of the court. Federer, however, quickly regained his composure and his service games remained untouchable, and he ultimately took the second set in one of the best tiebreaks of his career, winning each of his service points (four in all) with aces. He broke immediately at the start of the third set and never looked back, although he admitted afterward to having been overcome with emotion and nerves while serving for the match at 5-4, a game in which he crucially saved a break point before watching Söderling's return on his first match point find the net, at which point Federer sank to his knees, covered his face and let flow the tears of joy.

It is only fitting that it was Andre Agassi, the last man to complete the career Grand Slam with his win at Roland Garros in 1999, who presented Federer with the trophy in the post-match ceremony. Federer now joins Agassi, Don Budge, Fred Perry, Roy Emerson, and Rod Laver as the sixth man to achieve the feat; he and Agassi are the only two to have done it on three (or four, depending on how one classifies the Australian Open's former Rebound Ace) different surfaces. His accomplishment also means he emulates one of Agassi's greatest rivals, Pete Sampras, in winning his record-tying fourteenth Grand Slam title; Sampras, however, never made it past the semifinals in Paris.

And yet, historic though these accomplishments may be, they do not totally capture the significance of Federer's fortnight in the sixteenth arrondissement. They do not give adequate credit to the immense measure of mental fortitude he summoned to reach this peak. It had long been widely assumed, anyway, that Federer would catch Sampras' record and indeed surpass it--perhaps as soon as Wimbledon in just a few weeks' time. While the records will go a long way toward defining his legacy as a champion for the ages, this particular tournament effort provided indisputable evidence of his unmatched resolve to persevere and conquer all remaining goals regardless of any setbacks that would present themselves time and time again. He had been Björn Borg to Nadal's 1981 John McEnroe, yet instead of following Borg's lead by abandoning the game, he bode his time knowing that he was young enough to have plenty of chances to add to his legacy. Roland Garros 2009 revealed the unmatchable heart of this champion as he overcame doubts--including, most certainly, but never candidly, increasing self-doubt--about his ability to win big titles in a period of Mallorcan dominance and his drive to come back from the brink of defeat, a trick he repeated no less than four times in those two long weeks. In a matter of hours, he was handed the weight of the world, and not only did he balance it to perfection, but he also, once through, launched the celestial sphere back into its proper orbit.

My utter inability to take my mind off of the Swiss legend's quest for tennis immortality during the last eight days of championship--evidenced by the sporadic terre-battue-spattered stress dreams I experienced on more than one occasion--prompted me to ask a good friend and fellow Federer devoté after the final, "Why do we care so much?" In the abstract, it seems more than a bit silly to obsess over the athletic accomplishments of one man, whom I have never met and unfortunately probably never will meet, as he smacks tennis balls thousands of miles away in the hope of receiving a handsome cup. After a brief pause, we came to the conclusion that, aside from being run-of-the-mill nuts, we feel so connected to this one man and his pursuits simply because he embodies what we and our fellow human beings should aspire to be. As tennis players, we are mesmerized by the effortlessness and fluidity of his strokes which, frankly, provide the false perception that the game is insultingly easy. Indeed, more than any player before him and in all likelihood any to follow, he becomes one with racquet, ball and court itself to provide a devastatingly lethal yet spectacularly beautiful and regular execution of shot. As members of society and citizens of the world, we hope to be only half as gracious, charming, generous, and above all, humble, as is Federer. He rightly takes pride in his unparalleled accomplishments yet always remembers and appreciates those of his forebears. We certainly do not delude ourselves with ideas that he is perfect or in any way above human weakness--on the contrary, he has, on more than a few occasions, proven himself capable of expressing frustration and playing sloppy matches--but we recognize that his positive attributes substantially outweigh and outnumber the negatives, and that is what we can only hope to be so fortunate as to emulate.

For all these reasons and more, I say once again that I was ecstatic to have had my Melbourne-induced doubts smashed to bits in Paris. Indeed, I am sorely ashamed to have harbored such feelings in the first place. As Federer himself noted in a post-victory interview with McEnroe (who, coincidentally, along with legends Agassi and Sampras, has crowned Federer the Greatest of All Time) in regards to his self-belief in his chance to one day hold aloft the Coupe des Mousquetaires, "I knew it wasn't particularly the case [that I always would have to pass through Nadal to win here] because you can't be in every Grand Slam final."

"Unless," he forgot to add, "your name is Roger Federer." Long may he reign.