The 2010 Men's
Australian Open Final

By Allen Fox, Ph.D.

I mean no disrespect to Andy Murray, who handled himself with greatly increased maturity, but really, who wouldn't pull for RogerFederer (other than people from England) in the Australian final?

I enjoy his wins, suffer through his losses, and hate to see him cry. I just love watching him collect Slam titles. And there is a lot to learn for any player who closely observes his matches.

The Australian final was a beautifully played match, and, for me at least, satisfying in its outcome. Federer's game is poetry in motion: clean, smooth, deadly, inventive, and effective - - all apparently effortless. Of course whenever I watch someone else running it feels effortless to me since I'm not doing the running. And his character and demeanor are as classy as his game.

Several aspects of the match seem to me worthy of comment, with some implications players at all level can note.

The first is that Federer's backhand topspin appears greatly improved. It's now a first - class shot, not as good as his forehand, but first - class, nonetheless. How many players at any level can say they work on, much less dramatically improve a weakness? Well, the answer is the number one player does.

Murray, smart as he is tactically on court, came out with what would have appeared to be a perfect game plan: attack Federer's backhand. He repeatedly hit his backhand offensively crosscourt, flat and hard into Federer's backhand.

I would normally have thought this would be a great exchange for Murray, since his backhand is generally so much better than Federer's. I would also have thought Federer would be forced to chip is backhand back crosscourt defensively to Murray in order to keep his errors down.

But he didn't. Instead, Federer traded aggressive backhand crosscourts with Murray using his topspin shot. Surprisingly (to me, at least), Federer came out no less than even in this exchange.

This didn't win him the match, but rather kept him from losing it. It allowed him to stay on offense, rather than having to defend with his backhand chip. If you recall the match against Del Potro in the US Open final last year, Federer got run ragged in the fifth set defending, and when he tried to hit topspin backhands to escape, he missed.

Federer won the match because his forehand was the best shot on the court. Murray had nothing to match it. Although he hit a few forehand winners himself, and a few backhand down - the - line winners, Murray had no serious and consistent counter to Federer's forehand winners.

Federer's second advantage was with his serve. For whatever reason (maybe it was nerves), Murray was missing an unusual number of first serves, so he didn't get as many free points off of his serve as Federer.

Murray usually makes a lot of money slicing his first serve wide to the forehand in the deuce court, getting a short return, and attacking into the open court. Since he didn't get enough of these serves in, he didn't get his usual number of "almost free" points.

On the surprisingly positive side for Murray, his second serve was much deeper and faster than usual. This shot is normally considered a weakness, and it would have given Federer ideal opportunities to run around his backhand and hit aggressive serve returns with his forehand.

Since Murray's second serve was too tough for this, Federer was confined to hitting chip returns off of his backhand with no opportunity for an advantage. How important is the second serve? And how universally neglected below the highest levels?

Also impressive was the foot - speed of both players. Federer is surely among the fastest players on court of all time. He runs so lightly and easily (as did all the great movers like Rosewall, MacEnroe, Gonzales, etc.) that he appears to have no difficulty running down, without apparent effort, the best of his opponent's shots.

Murray, although a bigger man than Federer, moved equally well. It was beautiful to see two such great movers jockeying for position. We saw great shot after great shot chased down by both players and replied to with further great shots. For either of them to hit a winner, it took an ungodly good shot.

Psychologically, both players handled themselves exceptionally well. Both remained under great emotional control throughout. Had either of them faltered in this respect, his opponent would have run through him in a hurry. Federer behaved as he usually does, and Murray , with much improved maturity, very nearly matched him. Gone were his incidents of losing control and screaming at his coach in the stands. Federer won the first set in a close struggle and had opportunities to go up two breaks and virtually ice up the second. Murray hung tough and forced Federer to serve out the set, which he impressively did.

The only mental soft spot occurred (at least it appeared to me) at the beginning of the third set. Here the tennis became spotty from both players, but particularly from Federer. It looked to me like the tremendous concentration and discipline he had exerted to win the first two brutal sets and the apparent leeway of the two set lead made him want take a little mental vacation.

This is very normal. His game wobbled and he started to make more errors. For awhile it looked as if he might allow Murray to get some running room, enough, maybe, to sneak out the third set. But Murray wasn't playing great either; Federer managed to dig in and cut down his errors to pull even; and ultimately Federer hung tough enough to squeeze out the set and title.

Some players might have become exasperated with the mental let down and the loss of level, and this could have led to losing the set and letting Murray back in the match. How many club players go from bad to worse under these circumstances?

Both players behaved with great sportsmanship and class. Murray used to be a bit of a bad actor, but none of that was evident in this match. The players chatted together in a friendly and mutually respectful way after the match and both handled the microphone as well as they did the match. All in all, it was a pleasant afternoon of great tennis and feel - good results (especially for Federer). How about you? Do you play tennis because it makes you feel good as well? Or tell yourself so? In that case these two players were on this day excellent role models.