Flicking the Switch

There is a moment in a lot of tennis matches when it is balancing on the edge of a knife. You never realise that that was what this moment was until after the fact, when you have the luxury of hindsight, but sometimes in a match there is a moment when the tide just turns, when the momentum shifts, when a match that was going one way suddenly starts going another.

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There were two matches like this yesterday. I'm going to begin with less dramatic of the two - the Federer/Gonzalez match. It is melodramatic to say that this was a knife edge match, because it was hardly close in the end, but in the beginning it looked like it could be a real struggle.

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There are not many people who can beat Roger Federer 6-2 in a set. You look at matches where Federer drops sets, and a lot of them are breakers, or 7-5 sets, or 6-4 - one break of serve. To get a double break against Federer is - well, not unheard of, but pretty damn difficult. Federer wasn't playing out-of-his-skin amazing tennis in the first set, certainly not as well as he is capable of playing, but Gonzalez was playing out of his skin. And congratulations to him for it, because it is a feat.

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And then... Federer switched on.

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You'll often hear commentators talk about the ability of the top players, particularly Federer, to shift up a gear, to raise the level of play. How often have we seen Federer break his opponents basically at will to win a set? It's like he makes a decision in his head - "okay, Roger, break them now" - and then just does it. It's amazing - and what is more amazing is that the Federer gear-shift phenomenon isn't limited to a great game here and there. He can raise his level of play - and keep it there.

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This is something Gonzalez clearly has to learn. His first set was brilliant, but then he went off the boil. (Actually, one of the Radio Roland Garros commentators said that if Gonzo could play the way he did in his first set in all his matches, he'd be #1 in the world. I don't know about #1, but I think the big three would be quaking in their boots!) He came down a bit, right at the same time as Federer came up. Federer sustained an amazing level of play for the remaining three sets. When Federer flicked the switch, Gonzo never had a prayer.

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I judge how well a Federer match is going by how nervous I am. There have been some nailbiters in the past - the five set final of Wimbledon '07, that match in Monte Carlo against Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo, and for those of you that read this blog over the Australian summer, you will remember how exactly I tried to cope with my nerves during that Federer/Tipsarevic match. Sometimes he can be in the lead by two sets or something and my heart will be in my throat. Other times, he can be behind - like today - and I'm not nervous at all, because I know, I KNOW, that he is going to steady the ship.

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Roger Federer has not let me down once.

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The three sets that followed the Gonzo-dominated first set were vintage Federer. He hasn't been serving especially well of late, but he picked it up, and managed to conceal any remaining shortfall by some excellent netplay - he won some obscene amounts of points at the net, something like 29 from 35 - and his backhand was a standout among his multifarious arsenal. A friend of mine and I once nicknamed the backhand down the line shot as the 'Lily O'Dwyer' (a thing of beauty - a reference to 'The Calcium Kid') and Roger sure hit a few Lilies today. He was dangerous, lethal.

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This is another thing that is great about five set matchplay. This match showed how easy it is, even for the great ones, even for the Greatest Of All Time (tm), to lose a set. Sure, if this had been a best-of-three match Federer still would have won, but the mental terrain of the match (so to speak) would have been very different. You lose another set in a best-of-three match, and you're gone, sunshine. The mental pressure is much more concentrated.

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Which makes, I think, the achievement of Dinara Safina today especially good. Women don't have the luxury of the throwaway set. Federer can flick his switch and suddenly play better seemingly at will, but I'm beginning to think that the switch for Safina is having a match point against her. Like in the Sharapova match, Dementieva held a match point today. And Safina came through.

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I'm not sure how educated this analysis is, but maybe Safina is able to relax into her shots more when she knows she has nothing to lose. The match was basically gone, and so maybe that knowledge, the idea that what she does doesn't matter that much, enables her to swing more freely, at least for a little while. Certainly once she got that set back to a breaker it was game on. (And what a strange, seesawing breaker that was!) But then when Dinara hit her stride and hit the front in that third set, there was no stopping her. She was like a steamroller. Dementieva ain't no slouch, and even though she wasn't playing great in the third set, she didn't totally suck, but Dinara bagelled her.

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I don't know if Dinara is going to be able to get away with coming to the brink and clawing her way back against Svetlana Kuznetsova, who has been playing astonishingly well. My head is telling me Sveta will win this one. But I still like Dinara's chances - and that is where my heart lies. So I am going to pick Dinara to be the finalist from this side. (And thus win the Russian national championship - how bizarre was the draw? It was like all the Russians were on one side, and everyone else on the other. There was Safina, Kuznetsova, Dementieva, Sharapova... they were all floating around there. It was weird.)

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On the other side (in the Serbian national championship) is Ivanovic vs. Jankovic. I think this'll be a tight one, but I'm going with Ivanovic. She played a bit scratchily yesterday, but I think her overall form is better, especially as Jankovic seems to have that niggling shoulder injury. So Jodi is calling it: Ivanovic/Safina final.

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On the men's side, it seems pretty clear. I don't want to start throwing round words like 'destiny' and 'inevitable' but it is a little bit like that. Nadal over Djokovic. Federer over Monfils. The titans meet again. Roger/Rafa final.

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I'm not giving you my prediction for the winner until the finals are locked in, but I think that, if you see who I devoted this blog post to today, you can see where my heart lies.

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Roland Garros Results - Day #11

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Men's Draw

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Roger Federer def. Fernando Gonzalez, 2-6 6-2 6-3 6-4

Gael Monfils def. David Ferrer, 6-3 3-6 6-3 6-1

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Women's Draw

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Dinara Safina def. Elena Dementieva, 4-6 7-6 (7-5) 6-0

Svetlana Kuznetsova def. Kaia Kanepi, 7-5 6-2