The Fed gets pushed to the limit on the third round of Australian Open '08

I was about to take a bath when I happened to catch a part of the action from the third round of the Australian Open. It had Roger Federer, the king of tennis, playing against the world number 49 Janko Tipsarevic. At first, I thought there was some sort of typo on the scores. It showed that it was 2 sets apiece and Roger Federer was trailing 7-6, though he's the one on the serve. The commentators spoke up and it was correct; Roger Federer is trailing on the fifth set on the third round of the Australian Open. That can't be right. Against an unseeded player, no less.

I watched for a bit and saw two things that probably caught my eye as to why The Fed was trailing. His backhand wasn't working as efficiently as it normally does [he hit the ball into the net over and over during important stretches], and that Tipsarevic has a knack for hitting shots with difficult angles on them. The fifth set of a Grand Slam tournament in Tennis does not have a tiebreaker, so one has to break serve. I personally was hoping that Tipsarevic would somehow upend Federer just so that I can see an upset, and he seemed determined to do so as well. That was until the 17th game of the deciding set.

The score was 8-8, Tipsarevic to serve. Roger Federer just whomped through the last game, service ace after ace [he had two aces and two serves that didn't get returned] to even the match. Tipsarevic raced to a 40-0 lead and seemed to be on his way to putting the pressure back to the Fed. Then, something happened. Federer fought back again and dominated. He had two break opportunities and he converted on the second one. The last game was just gravy as the King proved once again why he is the man to beat. He calmly served and dominated the last game en route to a spot to the round of 16. It was a great match to see.

The match itself lasted 4 hours and 27 minutes. Is this a chink in the Fed's seemingly invincible armor? We'll see. People who watched the match should take note that even if Federer wasn't on his A-game, he wouldn't be pushed to the limit by an unseeded player like Tipsarevic. People need to watch that match again to see what he was doing right.

I'm all for Rafael Nadal winning this tournament. I've seen more than enough Federer winning everything outside of the French Open and I'm tired of watching Nadal winning ONLY that Grand Slam year in and year out. I'll hope that Nadal and his giant arms would once again flap the normally unflappable king of tennis, Roger Federer.