Other than being on Court No. 1 and not on the Centre Court, everything else seemed familiar in the initial hours of the match between Roger Federer and Kevin Anderson.
The defending champion was dominating and the opponent had no answer to the tennis Federer was playing. Federer no less than hammered Anderson to clinch the first set 6-2.
It was the 10th game in the third set. Federer held on the match and set point.
Unfortunately, 2018 Wimbledon’s second Wednesday was going to witness one of biggest upsets of the year.
Let’s go back again: Federer, in the 10th game of the third set, is on match and set point. He wastes three set points and gives one to Anderson, instead.
Two hours and 18 minutes later, Anderson breaks thousands of hearts, across the globe, as he defeats the top seeded player and defending champion Federer from his kingdom Wimbledon!
Federer stretches and deflects a backhand wide, by miles. “He gives up!,” shouts a colleague and there was a weird pin-drop silence in the news room and so would have been in several other workplaces and homes.
The shot is greeted with a half-hearted applause in the Court No. 1. Clearly, Anderson will have fewer supporters from now on.
Federer had been unstoppable; he had won 32 consecutive sets at the All England Club and it needed an unbelievable effort to stop Federer. He began the fairytale by breaking Federer in the third set and gave it a happy ending to himself by beating the veteran 2-6 6-7 (5-7) 7-5 6-4 13-11 in the match.
Anderson was two sets and five games down and only some mentally strong players can make a comeback from there. Anderson, on Wednesday, just joined that league of players.
Not once did Anderson panic. He kept telling himself, “Today was going to be my day.”
Life is funny. Anderson, who lives in Florida, hails from Johannesburg. Co-incidentally, Federer’s mother hails from the same country as Anderson. The 32-year-old African is the highest-ranked player from South Africa.
His current ATP singles ranking is No. 7 and the last time a player from the Rainbow Nation was inside top-10 was 21 years back - Wayne Ferreira (No. 10) on 5 May 1997.
Anderson has been in the tennis circuit for as many years as Rafael Nadal. Those two played each other regularly in the junior circuits. But, Nadal being extremely gifted, zoomed in his career to heights, while Anderson, until last year was almost an unknown name among the tennis fans who watch the sport only for the likes of Federer and Nadal.
Anderson broke into the top-10 scene for the first time in 2015. The same year, he made it to his first Grand Slam quarter-final, which was at the US Open.
Unfortunately, Stan Wawrinka, whom he had beaten last four times they played, including that year, defeated him in straight sets. He bagged his career’s third singles ATP title that year at Winston-Salem, USA. The next year, which was ruined by injuries, saw him without any singles title.
It was 2017 when he actually came into the limelight, despite having a slow start. He became the first South African, since Kevin Curren in 1984 Australian Open, to make it to the final of a major. However, he lost to World No. 1 Nadal in straight sets.
Ever since then, Anderson has been improving his game with every passing tournament.
He says his favourite shot is the ‘serve,’ and he certainly used it as a weapon against Federer, who himself is an excellent server. While Federer in the quarter-final on Wednesday smashed only 16 aces, Anderson beat him there with 28 and that did make a difference eventually in the result.
Until this last-eight match, Federer had never lost a match in Wimbledon after holding the match point.
But they say, everything happens for the first time. It was the Swiss legend’s turn to taste the bitter side of that saying.
