Outstanding Federer drains the resistance of Falla in Paris rain

RAIN HIT Paris, temporarily dousing the momentum of Roger Federer in this spluttering French Open, but giving Andy Murray – a possible semi-final opponent for the champion – extra time to recover from the rigours of his five-set ordeal in the first round.

The rain postponed Murray’s meeting with the Argentinian Juan Ignacio Chela until yesterday evening and Britain’s number one will resume this morning having won the first set 6-2 with the second level at 3-3. But the Swiss was in little danger of relinquishing his grip on the Coupe des Mousquetaires going on some of the brilliant tennis he produced to beat the tough but artistically limited Colombian Alejandro Falla 7-6, 6-2, 6-4.

By the time the weather turned in mid-afternoon, Federer had two sets in the bag. It is the steadiness of his excellence that drains the resistance from his opponents. If one passage of play encapsulated the Swiss’s gifts, it was that which began when he was 5-6 down in the first set, with Falla serving and pumped to the limit. Federer, who had been idling, found a fifth gear and began to drag the left-hander from one side of the court to the other with late and lethal flicks of his iron-strong right wrist.

He pulled back the deficit almost before Falla knew he had blown the set, then ground him down in the tie-break at a tempo totally at odds with most of the tennis that had gone before. It was as if Falla had been transported on to Planet Federer from Court Philippe Chatrier and was now gasping for air.

It rained, and it stopped. They went inside. It rained again. Then followed a quaint music-hall performance by six middle-aged men in lobster-coloured T-shirts pushing giant squeegees to squeeze the puddles from the tarpaulin in preparation for the players’ return.

Quite why someone has not invented a more efficient method of dealing with rain at a major international sporting invent ought to be the subject of some sort of expensive inquiry, but probably won’t be. A roof would be nice. Even the Australians and the British have them.

When they returned in their third set of shirts, Federer, leading 7-6 6-2, 1-0, resumed his own brand of water torture on Falla. He broke him, in the tennis and psychological sense, a performance at once cruel and beautiful.

Some of Federer’s flat, rasping forehands inches from the line not even a team of men with squeegees could stop. One backspin chip almost broke back over the net. A deep backhand winner down the line looked to be travelling at the speed of the far-away lightning. He hit cross-court at will and was passed only once.

Fella fought hard against the inevitable, pestering the rampant champion to produce some wondrous shots on the way to taking the third set 6-4. It took exactly two hours of tennis and what seemed like four seasons of patience. Within minutes of their departure, it rained again.

On a slow day, the talk of the tournament briefly was Venus Williams’s latest dress. If you cannot believe you are reading this, try to imagine it from this end of the lap top: she wore an item that might have been lifted from a fine New Orleans bordello circa 1920, all black lace and red trim atop, with a hem given prominence by what might have been starched ostrich feathers, all sustained in an unconvincing reach for modesty by flesh-colour shorts.

It was sufficiently striking to entrance not only the crowd and her first-round victim Patty Schnyder, but the compilers of the Open magazine too, who featured it on their cover yesterday. Opinion was divided. Some thought it unbelievable. Others reckoned it hilarious. Ooh-la-la, as they say.

- Guardian Service