You don’t want to get too far ahead of yourself with these things, but it’s kind of hard not to. You look at what Roger Federer has accomplished so far this year, and you start thinking, “We might be seeing the start of one of the most remarkable seasons tennis has ever seen.”
Federer has clearly been the top player on tour so far this year. At this level of play, he has a serious shot at winning multiple Majors, and it’s not outlandish to think that he might regain the number one ranking sometime during the year. He’s 35, four or more years older than his most serious rivals. Already, it’s been an amazing season.
And really, it’s genuinely stunning to think that at 35, Federer, already one of the greatest attacking players of all time, has somehow managed to elevate his attacking play still further. He’s serving lights out: apparently his aces per match is the highest it’s ever been, suggesting that his serve placement and disguise have somehow improved. (Given where he was already, how is that even possible?) And the much-discussed improvement of his backhand–taking the ball on the rise and attacking as constantly as he is able–has turned what was his weakness into a weapon. Everyone else on tour should be very afraid.
It’s easy to say that Federer’s success results in part from the decline of Murray and Djokovic, but while there’s truth to that, it’s not really very insightful. You can always find a counterfactual to diminish what’s happening in the moment. You could say of Djokovic’s brilliant 2015 season, “Sure, he was great, but Federer is so much older than him. If they were the same age, Federer would have been winning.” Okay, fine. And if Djokovic had chosen to play the 2015 Wimbledon final with his left hand, he’d have lost. Is that in any way a useful perspective? So Murray’s elbow may have been bothering him in Melbourne, where he lost in the round of 16 against Mischa Zverev, and it may have been bothering him at Indian Wells, where he lost in the second round against Pospisil. Maybe Djokovic lost in the second round in Melbourne to Istomin and got his ass handed to him at Indian Wells by Kyrgios because of sunspots. Who knows? Maybe if only I’d had better coaching, I’d be world number one right now. How far down the counterfactual rabbit-hole do you want to go?
That life unfolds with unexpected vagaries is just the way it is. Injuries happen. Burn out happens. Should we put an asterisk by Djokovic’s name in winning the French last year because Nadal had to pull out with a wrist injury? Does Murray get only half-credit for his 2016 Wimbledon win since it’s now clear that Federer wasn’t 100% after his post-Melbourne knee surgery?
I think we have to say no. It’s likely that Djokovic’s current malaise stems in part from bounce-back from the relentless intensity with which we pursued his goals in 2015 and the first half of 2016. It’s likely that Andy Murray’s decline since he took over the number one ranking, and the injury he’s dealing with now, stems from just how many matches he had to play last year. There is a cost to the body to play at the level of intensity professional tennis demands. That both Federer and Nadal are at the top of the game right now after six-month injury lay-offs is no more of a coincidence than that Murray and Djokovic have fallen off. All of that is the nature of the sport. (Any sport, really.) There are costs to actions. When you pour all your energy into winning one tournament, you may find your gas tank empty for the next one.
So any qualifiers you place on the success Federer has experienced so far this season are beside the point. It’s true that both Djokovic and Murray lost early at Melbourne. But for Federer to win the tournament, he still had to defeat Berdych, Nishikori, Wawrinka, and Nadal. At Indian Wells he had to beat Nadal and Wawrinka. At Miami he barely beat Berdych, played what will be viewed as one of the matches of the year in the semis against Kyrgios, and defeated Nadal in the final. No one has handed him anything.
Which means that I’m going to double down on the thesis of this little essay, that so far we are seeing what might be one of the great seasons in tennis history. Should Federer manage to win another Major this year, or regain, even for a week, the number one ranking, what we’ll be seeing from him will be as remarkable as anything we’ve ever seen in the sport. People have been writing him off as too old for several years now. That claim already didn’t match the evidence–his 2015 season was amazing, but unfortunately he ran into the Djokovic buzzsaw that year–but here we are, watching him at an age when most players are supposed to have already retired, and he is still, somehow, finding ways to elevate his game.
If the sport grabs your interest at all, it’s time to clear your calendar for Roland Garros, Wimbledon, and the summer hard court season. There’s a lot of tennis to come and many many things can still change. But even the possibility that we’re seeing the kind of season that people will talk about for years to come should keep you tuning in as the season progresses.