Gaël Monfils very nearly did enough on Thursday night to break up the all-star coaches reunion.
Mixing speeds, spins and bright ideas in the gusting winds that are part of the Arthur Ashe Stadium experience, he won the first two sets against Roger Federer.
Monfils, rarely losing focus for a change, hardly stopped there, earning himself two match points on Federer’s serve in the 10th game of the fourth set.
But the standing ovation that soon followed would be for Federer, and when this plot-twisting United States Open quarterfinal reached its conclusion shortly before midnight, Federer had typed another exclamation point into the story of his resurgent season, rallying to win 4-6, 3-6, 6-4, 7-5, 6-2 in 3 hours and 20 minutes, brisk for a five-set match
“I feel lucky to be able to do a press conference as the winner instead of the loser,” Federer said later. “But I’m also proud that I fought and stayed with him. The problem was that I was just one point from the end.”
Federer has now come back to win on nine occasions from a two-set deficit, but he has been more the ultimate tennis artist than the ultimate escape artist.
According to the ATP Tour, Thursday night was the first time in his record-filled career that he has rallied from match point down in singles to win in a Grand Slam tournament.
“The margins are so, so slim at that point,” Federer said. “It’s not really in your control really anymore. He needs one net cord or something so silly. When guys wish you good luck before the match, that’s when you hope it’s gonna kick in.”
Kick in it did, and while Monfils has the stuff of a showman, Federer – even at age 33 with millions of dollars and 17 major singles titles in the bank – still has the desire of a champion. Instead of Monfils making a late breakthrough at Flushing Meadows, it will be Federer making a return to the semifinals for the first time since 2011, leaving Monfils to trail 2-8 in career head-to-head matches against Federer.
He will do so in the company of his new co-coach Stefan Edberg, the elegant, net-rushing Swede who won back-to-back U.S. Opens in 1991 and 1992 and who joined Federer’s team this season. Federer’s opponent on Saturday will be the 14th-seeded Marin Cilic, the Croatian veteran who is now coached by his compatriot Goran Ivanisevic, a former Wimbledon champion.
In the other semifinal, Novak Djokovic, now coached by former No. 1 and Wimbledon champion Boris Becker, will face Kei Nishikori, now coached by former French Open champion Michael Chang along with Dante Bottini.
Edberg, Ivanisevic, Becker and Chang all played against each other when they were winning major titles. And after nearly a full season, the evidence — already considerable when Ivan Lendl worked with Andy Murray — appears indisputable: Star players turned star coaches do make a difference (Tomas Berdych, beaten soundly by Cilic on Thursday, is already talking hopefully about finding a way to hire Lendl).
“It’s crazy and it’s fun and it’s great to see Michael, Stefan and Boris all in the semifinals,” Ivanisevic said. “We had so many great matches against each other, and now we are sitting there and we can’t do anything, just clap and hope our guys are playing well and winning. Now one of us is going to win a Grand Slam again as a coach. Who? It’s going to be interesting.”
The only man who could have spoiled the symmetry was Monfils, who has no formal coach for the moment and seemed none the worse for the lack of guidance as he swept through his first four matches here without dropping a set.
He won the first two sets against Federer despite rolling his right ankle while changing direction in the second game of the second set. But he continued without apparent difficulty after being examined by a trainer on the next changeover. Meanwhile, Federer was the one looking sluggish despite his attempts to push forward. His repeated attempts to drop shot the speedy Monfils looked more like wishful thinking than clear thinking.
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