When Roger Federer was on stage at the traditional Gerry Weber Open Fashion Night on Saturday evening, presenter Franziska Schenk jokingly asked him how Federer would play best and most successfully against Federer.
Federer grinned, then said to the former world-class speed skater: “Serve incredibly well, return incredibly well. Keep your nerve and stay cool when the match gets serious.”
Borna Coric, the 21-year-old Croatian, stood reverently next to Federer on stage and probably thought: Wenn´s would only be so simple. But about 16 hours later, the challenger had followed the Maestro’s screenplay one hundred percent and had managed, in the style of a champion, to cause Federer a deserved defeat in his feel-good area in East Westphalia.
“I am absolutely overwhelmed. I don’t have the words,” said Coric after his masterly, courageous and self-confident performance at the 7:6 (8:6), 3:6, 6:2 victory on the Centre Court. Federer offered the best performance in a often bumpy, tough tournament week before, but it wasn’t good enough for the dynamic guy from the Next Gen squad.
For Federer, the slip not only ended a 20-game winning streak on the beloved tennis green, he lost not only the Gerry Weber Open title but also the first place in Spain’s Matador Rafael Nadal’s world rankings.
“Coric was extremely consistent, he didn’t flinch when it came to the decision. He absolutely deserved it,” said Federer, “but it was still a good week for me.” When ZDF presenter Norbert Lehmann taunted Federer in a question to Federer with the term “changing of the wax”, Federer countered with an icy smile: “This has been talked about for ten years. I’m sure it’s not a funeral now.”
After nine matches in about a week and a half, he will first “relax” and then drive to Wimbledon with a new impetus: “I feel well prepared for the Grand Slam there”. The Maestro, who had turned the Grass Festival into a Roger Federer show for many years, had reached his twelfth final with Müh´ and Not – with the prospect of creating something unique in his career there: Namely to win title number ten, a two-digit number, in the homeland also called “Stängeli”.
But from the first minute on Coric was once again an opponent of far greater calibre than all other opponents of the 36-year-old superstar so far. Coric hadn’t come to make a good impression and just to sell himself properly somehow. He played consistently, concentrated and courageously for victory, putting Federer under hellish pressure with his well-placed basic strokes.
It was nothing less than a duel at eye level, as it was about three months ago at the ATP Masters in Indian Wells, where Federer finally had the better nerves in the final phase.
This was different in Halle. Already in the first run, when Federer missed two set points in a 6:4 lead in the tiebreak and lost the lottery game 6:8. It was the first time in these two comeback weeks in Stuttgart and Halle after the long, voluntary tennis abstinence that Federer did not hit the Big Points and duped his opponent.
The 20-time Grand Slam Champion, however, was not particularly impressed at first, with 6:3 in Act 2 he made the set equaliser, many things pointed to a successful chase of the Maestro. But Coric stayed close to Federer and again passed him imposingly, decisive with the break to 4:2 in the third set.
And all decisive then with the break to 6:2 after 128 minutes played. “This is a huge act for me. A dream that will come true,” Coric said afterwards, still a little unbelieving about what he had achieved in Federer’s second living room.