The Wimbledon title has been relatively up for grabs ever since Novak Djokovic fell to Sam Querrey last Saturday. During Wednesday’s quarterfinals, the door to the winner’s trophy came excruciatingly close to being blown wide open with both Roger Federer and Andy Murray enduring five-setters.
Federer almost didn’t even live to see a fourth set.
The seven-time Wimbledon champion trailed Marin Cilic two sets to love and faced triple break point at 3-3 in the third but roared back for a 6-7(4), 4-6, 6-3, 7-6(9), 6-3 win in three hours and 17 minutes.
“It’s great winning matches like these, coming back from two sets to love,” the Swiss stated. “It’s rare. When it happens, you really enjoy them. Definitely felt like I got lucky to some extent today. Always when you’re saving match points, when you’re down two sets to love, 3‑all, love‑40, it’s a moment when it’s not in your control anymore.
“But I fought, I tried, I believed. At the end, I got it done…. It was great on so many levels.”
It was one point away–three times–from being not so good for the third seed. Even after digging out of 0-40 midway through the third set, he faced another dangerous deficit in the fourth. Cilic earned match points at 4-5, 30-40, 5-6, 30-40, and 7-6 in the ensuing tiebreaker but could not seal the deal.
Federer eventually survived a dramatic fourth-set ‘breaker and never again relinquished control. One break in the fifth at 4-3 proved to be decisive for the 34-year-old, who capped off his comeback with a routine hold punctuated by consecutive aces at 30-15 and 40-15.
“Today was epic,” Federer said. “(I’m) probably going to look back at this as being a great, great match that I played in my career, on Centre Court here at Wimbledon.”
“[It was] a huge occasion, and I played great tennis,” Cilic commented. [I] was very close to the victory. Obviously…it’s not easy to deal with it after that.
“But, you know, I have to take the positives and the great tennis that I managed to play. It’s my first time in the career I think that I’m losing the match when I was two sets to love up. [I did not] let myself down a little bit physically or mentally. In all three sets that [I lost], I played pretty good tennis.”
Just not good enough to finish off arguably the greatest of all time.
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Arguably GOAT. Thought now it belongs to Nole, the only player to hold four slams trophy in 21st century.
If Fed wins on Sunday pushing 35, he’s got a case to recover his GOAT crown currently coshared by Rafole.
(Or at least a three way tie.)