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NEW
YORK—After the winning clarity of Serena and Venus
Williams carried the late afternoon and early evening,
the globally famous enigma turned up at night.
How
would Roger Federer look Tuesday night near the end of
his oft-tormented summer? Well, as it happened, he
looked quite a bit like Roger Federer in a 6-3, 6-0, 6-3
win, partly because he benefited from a first-round draw
of infinitely more mystery.
“Never
saw my opponent before,” Federer said. “Never saw him
play, obviously, ‘cause I never saw him.”
To the
occasion, the 118th-ranked Maximo Gonzalez of Argentina
brought along his lifetime record in Association of
Tennis Professionals Tour-level hard-court events: 0-0.
He also brought along his record in Grand Slam main
draws: 0-0.
Among
the billions of people on Earth with 0-0 tour-level
hard-court records, though, he probably fared better
than just about any would have.
“It’s
unbelievable for me,” he said afterward from his seat in
a small interview room amid mostly Spanish-speaking
reporters. “It was like a dream. I was so happy....I
played so good, he played unbelievable, I think, all the
time. For me he’s No. 1 always.”
For the
world he’s No. 2 after a summer with a storybook loss to
Rafael Nadal in the Wimbledon final, then an
uncharacteristic 4-3 record since. What’s novel is, he’s
learning the distinct joys of No. 2 after an eternal 239
weeks at No. 1.
“The
change I feel is fans are really supporting me and
telling me I’m still number one and still the best,
‘You’re going to be there again,’ and stuff. So I feel
like I’ve got unbelievable support from the fans
watching me and seeing people in the streets and stuff,”
he said.
Everybody loves an underdog, even that oddest kind of
underdog, the four-times-defending-champion underdog. In
the champions’ parade Monday night that feted 40 years
of open-era tennis, by far the largest swell of ovation
came for Federer.
“We
shouldn’t forget that they’re supposed to scream for the
Americans here,” he said. “I guess I’m very close to
their hearts by now.”
Federer
even brought back a speck of the puckish wit he has
hidden for some time, saying that nowadays he has to
start reading draws from the bottom.
He said
this about 11 hours after a No. 1 player, Ana Ivanovic,
looked as if she’d need a U-Haul to carry around the
ranking.
Breathing heavily when she remembered to breathe, she
weathered 57th-ranked Russian Vera Dushevina, 6-4, 1-6,
6-4, in a first-round match fairly excruciating to
watch.
That led
to the Williams sisters, two people who have been No. 1
and may yet acquire it again, even in their late 20s.
Yet,
they spoke of the power of two, still glowing from their
Olympic doubles gold medal.
“I’ll
definitely be living off that moment for a while, so
it’s going to take me a year to come down off that,”
Venus Williams said, and then spoke of playing the
Olympics in 2012 and 2016.
She had
just beaten the Australian doubles maestro Samantha
Stosur, 6-2, 6-3, blasting through a 3-1 deficit in the
second.
“It’s
definitely confidence I can take” from Beijing, Serena
Williams said, and she had just beaten the capable,
46th-ranked Kateryna Bondarenko of Ukraine, 6-1, 6-4,
looking very much like somebody intent on bandaging the
strange bit of history that has her lacking a US Open
semifinal or final since 2002.
Asked if
six years feels unreasonably long, she said,
“Absolutely. I don’t even remember holding up the
trophy.
“I
didn’t even know I won this tournament, that’s how long
it’s been.” |
