Too Good: Federer's Mastery of the Random

If asked to make a list of tennis strategies, serving and volleying might be at the top. Then the drop shot, lob one-two. Maybe I-formation doubles. But you’d be under duress to come up with a name for the strategy Roger Federer used to unnerve Novak Djokovic in the finals of the Cincinnati Masters 1000. In August, Federer executed a carefully planned strategy of randomness and variation. A veritable Sybil, his pace, spin, depth, and angle were entirely unpredictable from point to point. Few players have the range and confidence to play such a game.

The constant change-ups kept Djokovic honest, kept him guessing, and kept him from controlling the match. Federer was impossible to read so Djokovic could never find a rhythm. Federer reified a consistent un-readability that tennis tacticians only dream of. He embodied Baudrillard’s “magic of concept and the charm of the real” simultaneously. Randomness is perhaps a misnomer. Random insofar as the best penalty takers are random. Those who aim left once, right the next, then dead center, top corner the next time with no apparent method prevent goalkeepers from anticipating what to expect. Random in a paradoxically systematic fashion.

Federer’s random is carefully calculated. He doesn’t go for winners on "random" points or take unnecessary risks. He hates the swing for the fences style, as evidenced by the following example. At the 2011 US Open semifinals, Djokovic saved five match points to beat Federer. One shot that particularly angered Federer was a go-for-broke forehand that John McEnroe praised as “one of the all-time great shots”. Federer didn’t regard Djokovic’s risky behavior as a strategy, but as desperation. He vilipended Djokovic’s game, “I mean, please. Some players grow up and play like that – being down 5-2 in the third, and they all just start slapping shots. I never played that way... For me, this is very hard to understand. How can you play a shot like that on match point?”

Djokovic closed out the 2011 semi playing with the why the Hell not? attitude that many qualifiers adopt against top seeded players in hopes of an upset. It’s Lukas Rosol tennis. Dustin Brown tennis. It’s hopeful giant slayer tennis. In other words, Federer saw it as aleatory and beneath the level of tennis that should be played in the semifinal of a Major. In the post-match interview Federer could hardly contain his disdain. Luck, more than anything, had given Djokovic the advantage (well, Federer implied, luck and a shameless willingness to let fly). The 2011 semis was a sour loss. The memory may have informed his decision to adopt a strategy of methodical randomness at Cincy this season.

What’s funny is that Federer rarely deigns to bother with strategy. Players and coaches alike know how Roger is going to play beforehand. Doing so, though, is no advantage because they’re still without a means to win. Cassandra can tell you Troy will be sacked, but you cannot stop the inexorable. If you are incapable of returning the Federer serve or of passing him at net, expect to lose. Federer has the luxury of playing a predictable game because the sheer quality of his strokes and vision preclude his opponent from competing. He has no need to hit to an opponent’s ‘weaker’ side when the ‘stronger’ side poses no threat to begin with. Unless you consider waiting for unforced errors a strategy, Federer can usually rely on an intimidating combination of his talent, sangfroid, and living legend status to beat opponents before they step onto the court.

That there was a semblance of strategy in Federer’s game at Cincy is a testament to Djokovic’s strength as a competitor. Federer famously does not watch his opponents’ early matches or tapes, presumably because he figures he can neutralize any kind of game with his own. It’s possible to construe the careful and diligent use of strategy at Cincy as a concession of sorts. Is Federer acknowledging that he cannot simply go out and play his usual game against Djokovic?

The apogee of success is to be accused of champion’s arrogance: (n.) the unwillingness to adapt one’s game to an opponent’s game based on a myopic and bullheaded belief in the methods of a particular brand of play that produced previous success. It was Cicero who said, “I am blind and too attached to what is noble.” Though it’s difficult to oppugn Federer’s methods, his unyielding belief in his own daedal game as the best game could be a hindrance to success. If he believes too fiercely in the superiority of his tennis, there is little room for adaptation or change--especially if he does not possess the same self-awareness as the famed orator. There is such a thing as over-belief and indulgent loyalty to the purity and integrity of a certain style of play.

You might be inclined to say that Federer’s random strategy embodies a crack in the façade of his champion’s arrogance because he is adapting his game to his opponents’ game. But consider: the random strategy is not tailor-made for Djokovic. It would unsettle any player. We don’t see the strategy on tour often because hardly anyone has the range of shotmaking to execute it and Federer rarely needs to make use of it.

So rather than the random strategy speaking to a decline in his “champion’s arrogance”, the strategy is further proof of said arrogance. The random style Federer adopted against Djokovic is an ever-more distinctly singular brand of Federer tennis. It’s the Federer-est tennis he’s played in years. For a while Federer tried to baseline grind with the rest of the Big Four, but it wasn’t his natural game and he experienced mixed results. The random game, which he alone has the range of shots to make use of, is Federer tennis in its purest form.

He is returning serve closer to the baseline than even he typically does, taking balls earlier, and half-volleying returns of serve. This last one proves that he’s playing more like himself than he has in years.

The ‘rush of blood’ service return is irreverent. It’s difficult, risky, and pays dividends. It’s aggressive and altogether Federer-ian. Funnily, if anyone but he performed such a cheeky act, it would be deemed disrespectful (and he would be the first to express as much). There’s something supercilious about the shot that smacks of mockery. Still, it’s nice to see he’s experimenting in his relative old age, even if it is at the expense of other players’ dignity.

To move in on a second serve is humiliating for an opponent. But Federer did so with aplomb, to Murray and Djokovic both. Federer hasn’t needed to alter his game to his opponents because his personal style of tennis only increases in efficacy as he ages. The only adjustment he has made is to play a more concentrated version of his extant game. His quickness in ending points and the fast pace at which he plays suits an older player as well as it did a young player, unlike the physical game Nadal specializes in.  

It’s a tautology that Federer’s tennis can only be made stronger by amplifying the facets that are singular to his game. He has distilled his game to its purest and most efficacious form. What he brings to court nowadays is his most basic game, no frills. Though, one could argue, his game is composed entirely of frills. And therein lies its beauty.