TENNIS/WORLD TOUR FINALS:ROGER FEDERER has measured his route home all year with the precision of a captain steering his ship through countless storms, but he had to negotiate the pirate tendencies of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga at the very end of the journey to win the 100th final of his golden career.
He served for the match at 5-4 in the second set then lost the tie-break before closing it out to win the ATP World Tour Finals 6-3, 6-7, 6-3 in two hours and 18 minutes, relieved as much as joyous.
It secured him a record sixth title, €1.15 million in prize money and the right to look around the devastated field of his wounded and exhausted peers after 11 tough months of the tour with the satisfaction only a survivor would understand.
As the others dropped out through mental tiredness or physical frailty, the 30-year-old Federer ploughed serenely on. After half an hour of this final there was little in it. It was then he launched his first surge, a glorious backhand down the line giving him three break points; he did not need them.
There was little hint of a change in the prevailing wind until the last gasp of the second set. Federer broke to lead 3-2 and was on autopilot when serving for the match at 5-4. But Tsonga found new life in his legs, grabbed three break points and levelled, going on to force the tie-break.
Nerves immediately kicked in on both sides of the net. Tsonga netted a backhand on his first serve, and Federer served a double-fault for the first time. At 3-1, up the Swiss shanked a forehand long. He eased to 4-2 at the changeover and looked in control.
Tsonga challenged a smash that was in and resumed serving at 2-5 down. There was an audible gasp when Federer allowed Tsonga back into the contest at 5-5 with a botched forehand, but he repaired the damage with an ace and stood a point from victory.
Tsonga steadied himself for a do-or-die serve. It banged into the tape, but he saved with a measured forehand into open space for 6-6. Federer challenged a Tsonga serve in vain, for 6-7. The Frenchman cracked an unreturnable forehand at Federer’s feet and the match went to a deciding third set.
Federer shanked a forehand off the frame high into the roofing in the eighth game of the final set, but Tsonga struggled to stay in the fight, needing a remarkable stretched forehand at the net to save a second break point. When he put a forehand wide under pressure, however, Federer sensed yet another chance for the kill.
Serving for the match 40 minutes into the set, he steadied himself as he has thousands of times before. This need a clinician’s touch and nobody in his sport has his coolness when the prize is so close – even if Novak Djokovic snatched the prize from him at the death in New York.
With three match points in the bag, he ventured to the net as he had all night and he belted the winner hard into the court, throwing his arms high.
He will never tire of winning. That separates him from all but a few of his rivals, a hunger for success that seems unnatural to others but sustains him in crises.
The challenges of his youth, when he was pre-eminent in the game, are gone.
The mountains in front of him now are tougher to negotiate. What does not change, however, is the artistry of his movement. Nobody in the history of tennis has managed pressure as gracefully as Federer does, his feet still floating across the court while the man at the other end is drowning.
By the time the good ship Federer sailed into port to be hailed yet again for his enduring genius, Tsonga was left spent.
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