Tennis fans in Sweden must have thought they had died and gone to heaven. Held in the week after the conclusion of the intense Asian swing at the Shanghai Masters, it is a time of rest for the top men on the tour. Ahead lays the final push through Europe to the last Masters in Paris and, ultimately, the year-end jamboree in London.
It's a good win for Roger, but he didn't face any top 10 player in the process. For me his performance in Shanghai was of more importance. His win over Novak, who was in form and had lots of momentum from his win in Beijing, was very encouraging. However his poor showing against Murray, especially how he played in key moments, was a bit worrying. Now it's really how he plays against the other big guns that matters the most. The key for Roger to regain the No. 1 ranking is to finish the year strong and also perform well in Australia next year. If he can gain much more points during that strech than Rafa, then when the clay season comes next May, he will be in good position. There are still two big Sampras records for him to tie or surpass, the total number of weeks at No. 1 and year-end No. 1 finishes. Roger is one shy in each category. And it seems Roger will hang around for the next few years, so I think he will pass McEnroe's mark of 77 tour titles, but the Masters title record will be Rafa's to keep.
Yet the beautiful, chilly city of Stockholm had not one but three of the men who expect to contest the World Tour Finals next month: home hero and world No. 5 Robin Soderling, Czech No. 6 Tomas Berdych and, cream of the crop, No. 2 Roger Federer.
Soderling was aiming to win his home title for the first time in eight attempts—his best finishes were as runner-up in 2003 and 2008. So his heart must have sunk when Federer announced, only a couple of months earlier, that he was adding Stockholm to his schedule.
In the event, Soderling’s chances of the title came to an abrupt end well before the expected final with Federer, in a quarterfinal loss to the unseeded German Florian Mayer.
Berdych also fell in the first round, so it was down to Federer to make the tennis headlines. Playing in Stockholm for the first time in 10 years, he appeared to be on a mission: to tick off as many new landmarks in his career as possible.
By winning his first match, he became the only active player on the tour to reach 900 ATP matches. The first of those matches was played, as 16-year-old, the week after he was crowned Wimbledon Junior Champion 12 years ago. He lost that one, but sailed through Taylor Dent in his 900th.
In his second match, Federer won his 50th match of the year to become only the fifth man in the Open era to win 50 matches in at least nine straight years.
If he went on to win the Stockholm title, he would reach 64, and tie with Pete Sampras in fourth place on the Open era titles list. It would also mark the 18th different country in which he had won. From the United States to Europe, from Japan to Canada, from the Middle East to China: Federer is, literally, a worldwide champion.
The final turned out to be a royal occasion in more ways than one. Played to a capacity 5,000-plus crowd in Sweden’s Royal Tennis Hall, it was attended by Crown Princess Victoria, and it was she who would present the silver globe of a trophy to the winner.
The closest to royalty on the current tennis tour, Federer himself, had made far from faultless progress in the tournament. He was a set and a break down to Stanislas Wawrinka in the quarterfinals, in a match riddled with unforced errors, before finding his attacking game to take the win.
Against Ivan Ljubicic in the semis, he also went a break down early on, and trailed right up to the moment Ljubicic served for the set. Federer assaulted the net, forced errors from his opponent, and broke back. Federer won the tiebreaker and then a more straightforward second set, 6-2.
And the same pattern seemed to unfold in the final. Mayer, in only his third tour final, had played one of his best ever weeks in taking out Soderling and Feliciano Lopez.
There’s a still bigger prize up for grabs the week after Basel: the final Masters of the year in Paris.
Federer has already overhauled Andre Agassi’s record number of Masters match wins, which now stands at 221. However, he still equals Agassi’s tally of 17 Masters titles and needs one more to equal Rafael Nadal’s leading 18.
Paris would be a good place to do it, as that is the only Masters on the tour where Federer has yet to reach the final. To add a little more spice to the occasion, Djokovic is the title-holder there, too. So there are incentives aplenty to keep Federer’s engine in turbo drive.
But judging from his words in recent days, his desire to play and to win is undiminished. Not only did he cheerfully consider a 1,000 matches to be well within his reach in the next two years, he also confirmed that the No. 1 ranking was also an itch that needed scratching: “It’s not that important to be two, three or four. For me, it’s either number one in the world or everything else.”
Actually, I think that's an interesting proposition. That if Federer goes all out for Paris, he is jeopardising the WTFs, and therefore accepting a second-best place. It is intriguing, because Basel means a great deal to him and he will certainly want to win that back. He was crest-fallen when he lost last year. But Paris would throw down a marker ahead of London, and pass another couple of landmarks. Does he have the stamina to win all three? It's a very big ask, and as you say, Rafa will hold enough in reserve to get that year-end title he's not yet won, esp after such a rough ride there last year.
And then there's Djokovic and Murray. I think either has the ability to win Paris or the WTFs and, again as you say, they both like the predictable hard indoors. Just when the season feels like it's winding down, it really isn't.
The Masters tally will probably end up as Rafa's: that run of clay Masters events almost seals the deal on its own, and he's now just as capable of winning a hard-court Masters as well. But Paris would enable Federer to equal Rafa at the top until next spring.
I believe the weeks at No1 is an important target for Federer, as you do, but he's really got his work cut out to get that back, and it will probably be impossible if he doesn't do well in Australia and Wimbledon. Australia is also a possible for Murray and Djokovic if they hold their form through the winter, making the job even harder for Federer.
One longer term ambition for Federer that is a little further off, of course, is that Olympic gold, and I reckon he'll schedule most of 2012 around peaking for that - ie Wimbledon in June/July and then keep his focus on the grass until August. Just hope I'm able to get a ticket to see it!
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