Miami Open 2019: Roger Federer's ever-sharp mind is proving to be the elixir of his glittering career

Does Roger Federer get physically tired? By most accounts he does; we’ve lost count of the number of times he has run out of gas by the end of a long match.

But does he get mentally tired? Does he ever reach a point where he feels, ‘I can’t keep exercising my brain to find a way to stay on the court anymore’? Even after 20 years of watching him play, none of us can dare to answer in the negative.

This week at the Miami Open, which was punctuated by a commanding 6-1, 6-4 win over John Isner in the final for his fourth triumph in the city, 28th Masters trophy and 101st title overall, Federer looked neither physically spent nor mentally fatigued. And at 37, those two things are not unrelated.

Federer’s freshness is not a modern miracle or a product of some mysterious age-reversing elixir. Instead, it is a product of his ever-alert mind and his eternally cerebral approach to the game. As he – together with the 30-plus Isner – successfully held off yet another charge by the youth brigade (the losing semi-finalists were both teenagers), it was another reminder of how rewarding it can be to make your mind do more of the work than your body.

When Federer dropped the first set in his opening match against Radu Albot, memories of his loss to Thanasi Kokkinakis at the same stage in 2018 came flooding back. Just like last year, he looked worn out after a frustrating and long week in Indian Wells; just like last year, he didn’t seem particularly interested in extending his stay on the court at a venue where he had won just once in the previous 11 years.

But it helped that Albot doesn’t have the weapons to keep Federer off-balance for two whole sets. The Swiss somehow found his forehand in the nick of time to eke out the second set 7-5, and that was all the invitation his mind needed to go into overdrive. Federer got better with each passing set after that escape – not just with his play, but also with the way he broke down all of his opponents’ games while simultaneously preserving his energy as much as humanly possible.

Against Filip Krajinovic in the third round, Federer looked to hit with depth rather than pace to prevent the counter-punching Serb from getting a foothold in the rallies. Against Daniil Medvedev in the fourth round, he looked to extend points rather than shorten them, hitting a series of off-pace backhands that forced the Russian to generate his own pace. Against Kevin Anderson in the quarter-final, Federer sliced and diced the ball to every inch of the court, making the South African bend low and stretch wide. Against Denis Shapovalov in the semis, he targeted the youngster’s powerful but erratic backhand with gusto, repeatedly making him hit one extra shot off that wing.

Every match of Federer’s up to the final showcased a different game plan. He didn’t always play the most attacking tennis, as is his wont. He didn’t even serve like a madman, as has been a prerequisite in most of his recent title wins. He merely kept asking his brain to give him the most precise strategy needed for the win, and his brain delivered.

Against Isner in the final, Federer had no reason to preserve his energy anymore; his next match was more than a month away. So he chose to receive serve after winning the toss, seemingly prepared to come charging out of the blocks and face the biggest weapon in the men’s game – the Isner serve – head on. The first game of the match, where Federer was razor-sharp with his focus and intensity, displayed every single skill from his playbook – the ability to get big returns back in play, the ability to attack and defend with equal elan, the ability pull the trigger at just the right time.

The message was clear. If Isner wanted to win his second consecutive Miami trophy, he’d have to find a way to counter the flowing, full-tilt, kitchen-sink-throwing Federer.

As it turned out, the Swiss didn’t need to push himself for too long to get the win. After getting broken as many as three times in the first set, the shell-shocked Isner picked up a foot injury mid-way through the second and could only hobble his way to the finish line.

The end was a little hard to watch as Isner gamely refused to retire, trying his best to give Federer a ‘complete’ win, but it didn’t dim any of the incandescence of that belief-defying first set. Federer has always been known for his ability to handle big servers, but breaking Isner thrice in a set was abnormal even by his staggering standards.

“Roger was standing in close as well, just reacting very well and very fast to my serve. I mean, he’s something else,” Isner said after the match, seemingly just as lost for words as the rest of us at Federer’s otherworldly returning.

Would any of that finals magic have been possible if Federer hadn’t played his most efficient tennis since 2017 in the first five rounds? The story of Federer’s career twilight has often been about the ‘nearly there’ moment; he plays brilliant tennis for a few matches, but ends up using too much energy in the process and stumbles when he runs into one quality opponent too many. In that context his Miami run was different, and maybe even a sign of yet another step in his evolution as a player – an evolution that seemingly has no end.

“Of course you feel fortunate when you come all the way to the end of the event and you can sit here with the trophy. It’s definitely a moment you appreciate a lot, because you know it could have turned out very different,” Federer said after the match. And things have been turning out different, as we saw just a couple of weeks ago in Indian Wells where he lost to Dominic Thiem in the final despite playing some of his best tennis in the lead-up to the match.

Was it just good fortune, as Federer put it, that he managed to stay the course till the very end in Miami? Or was it better planning and execution?

If there’s one thing that Federer has retained through all the ups and downs – mostly ups – in his career, it’s his pragmatism. He never fails to look at the big picture, even if he’s just played a masterful tournament that should serve as a blueprint of workload management for all tennis players of all ages. He could have done everything right and still fallen short at the last hurdle; a shot could have landed an inch wide, a return could have dropped millimeters short, a net-chord could have gone against him.

That none of those things happened is a piece of good fortune, even if you are Roger freaking Federer. But of course you’d expect his brain to recognise that, and to react to it with the appropriate level of aplomb. After all, that brain never stops working to find the perfect way of dealing with everything.