TENNIS US OPEN:If a tennis tournament can be reduced to one moment – albeit one that was embroidered by an eight-minute standing ovation – it was Roger Federer's repeat of his outrageous back-to-the-net, between-the-legs winner that sent a tremor through the rest of this US Open field.
It was not just the audacity of the shot – a YouTube classic to outdo his fake William Tell stunt for a razor blade ad – but the fact that in dismissing the feeble challenge of the bedazzled centre court debutant Brian Dabul in the first round, Federer was making the most emphatic statement: he is back.
Speaking not long before that stunning effort on Monday night (an almost exact replica of the shot he played at Flushing Meadows last year), John McEnroe, no mean magician himself, said that the Swiss had something to prove here. McEnroe could not agree with the player’s recent ambition of winning four more majors to go with the record haul of 16 he has got already.
When Federer was asked if he would settle for five more years as a player and three more slams, the world number two said, no, he would want more than that. “I would have taken it,” McEnroe said, “but then again I’m a different person. Maybe that’s why he has the all-time record. Maybe if you switched it: five [slams] and three years. But it’s hard to envision – as great as his results have been – that he can keep it up and then only win one slam, say, every other year. I don’t know if he’ll last that long.”
Still, McEnroe cannot separate him from Rafael Nadal or Andy Murray, who are on the same side of the draw. “I saw Andy beat Nadal in a tune-up event,” McEnroe said. “He’s strong, looked like he was saving himself a little in [Cincinnati]. Heat was an issue there.
“Federer’s not going to have to deal with both of them, which is good for him. You have to wait and see if [Nadal and Murray] play in the semis, how much would they beat up on each other and that would favour the other guy [Federer]. So it’s hard to predict – but I’d be very surprised if one of those three guys didn’t win it.”
McEnroe says Murray has got to take a look at his strategy, though, if he is to win his first slam. “He does have a tendency to be [more passive] against the lesser players, rather than the better ones. But when he tightens up in some of his biggest matches it seems like he hasn’t been aggressive enough. If I were to change one thing I would do that.
“At times, for me at least, he has a tendency to go for too much on his first serve. I’d prefer to see his percentage up in the 60s, take a little bit off it and place it a little better, and that would get him ahead in more points instead of just shooting for aces.”
McEnroe thinks Murray’s best shot will be next year – with a revamped game and with the Scot still looking for a coach he could do worse than give McEnroe a call now and again.
In yesterday’s early play fourth-seeded Jelena Jankovic survived a three-set match with Romania’s Simona Halep, and Marcos Baghdatis was upset in five sets.
Serbia’s Jankovic, the US Open runner-up in 2008, needed 2 hours, 20 minutes to win 6-4, 4-6, 7-5 in sunny, hot conditions. She and Halep combined for 15 service breaks and 84 unforced errors before Jankovic advanced and avoided becoming the first high seed to lose at the seasons final Grand Slam event.
The temperature reached 110 degrees as Baghdatis, the 16th seed from Cyprus, played his fifth set against unseeded Frenchman Arnaud Clement, losing 6-3, 2-6, 1-6, 6-4, 7-5.
Guardian Service
