For two sets, Gael Monfils looked like the player who was the 17-time Grand Slam champion. Thursday night, he was flying around the US Open court, smashing forehands and crushing serves.
He was playing loosely and fearlessly. He flashed a huge smile as he made miraculous shots and he even enjoyed a Coke during one changeover.
All his opponent, Roger Federer (the actual 17-tme Grand Slam champion), could do was watch.
A Federer backhand into the net gave Monfils a two-set lead just 78 minutes into the match. The 28 year-old Frenchman was just one set away from securing the biggest win of his career.
But Federer was not going down easily. He clawed his way back into the match by winning the third set 6-4.
Despite Federer breathing down his neck, Monfils kept his composure and was standing at victory’s doorstep. He led 5-4 in the fourth set and had two match points. All he had to do was win either of the next two points. One more point and the match was his.
In the first point, Federer conjured up a huge first serve and won the point on a Monfils shot that was barely out.
Federer saved match point a second time and the New York crowd went wild.
Federer won that game and now the pressure fell on Monfils to hold the match at 5-5.
A momentum shift, no, make that a title wave of momentum was about to hit.
In the next game, Monfils missed four serves in a row — his eighth and ninth double faults of the match and fourth and fifth of the set — to give Federer the break he needed. Federer held comfortably and the match was even.
Technically the match went into a fifth set, but emotionally, the match was over right then and there.
Monfils lost his composure and confidence and was immediately broken on serve. Between the fourth and fifth sets, Federer reeled off five straight games to run away with the final set.
On the last point, the ball trickled off Monfils’ racket and weakly bounce into the net. He was defeated.
One could argue that Federer stepped up his game and took the contest to a level his opponent could not match. You might even argue that Federer’s great conditioning allowed him to prevail in a grueling, five set bout.
Both of those points might be true, but the reason Monfils lost, after such a great start, has more to do with what was going on between his ears than what was happening on Federer’s racket.
Walking to his chair following his blown match point chances, Monfils didn’t look like a man who was a few points away from securing a spot in the US Open semifinals. He no longer looked like the confident player that had Federer, one of the all time greats, on the ropes. His trademark smile was nowhere to be found.
I can’t get inside Monfils’ head at that moment, but it’s a pretty safe bet to say that he was thinking about those two fateful points.
Like a former girlfriend, they were the ones that got away.
It was clear that he was focusing on the negative. His face looked like a player who was dwelling on the two immensely important points that he let slip through his racket stings.
Federer, on the other hand, was telling himself not to give up. “I thought, this is it, don’t let him have an easy shot and go down fighting,” Federer said after the match.
Down two sets to none, Federer could have thrown in the towel. He could have lost and he still would have been considered one of the best athletes of our generation. But he wasn’t ready to walk away that easily.
He knew his back was against the wall, but believed he could win. He knew his serve would improve, his experience would guide him and his conditioning would pay off. He was ready to go down fighting.
He was focusing on the positive rather than dwelling on what was going wrong.
His opponent was too caught up in thoughts of negativity to see that he still had a great opportunity in front of him.
There is a fine between a legend and a letdown. One keeps his head up and is looking ahead through a lens of optimism. The other hangs his head and is weighed down by a pile of gloom.
That is the difference between a championship and a collapse.
Photo credit: Wikipedia
