Hot News: Federer-less Final (No Djok!)

'What do you think is happening here?' a friend asked me. We were up in the nosebleeds at Arthur Ashe Stadium, in Flushing Meadows. Roger Federer and Gaël Monfils were deep in the fourth set of their quarterfinal match. It was around 11 P.M., Thursday, well before Federer's elimination on Saturday was even thinkable. I wasn't sure what she was asking; she wasn't a big tennis fan.

There were several possible answers. First: two men are hitting a ball back and forth over a net to determine which of them, on this day anyway, is the better at it. Second: Federer, the better on most every other day, is playing a sloppy, mopey match but is somehow clawing his way back, partly by finding his range and his mojo and partly by his opponent's losing his. Last: a lot of well-to-do people have gathered here in a giant stadium and, by means of what you might call the willing suspension of disinterest, have allowed themselves to become irrationally concerned over the outcome of an athletic contest between two rich strangers.

This isn't what she was after. She was wondering about the fans' rooting interests, the meaning of the noises coming from the crowd. Unaware of the now deep if not quite universal worship of the Federer game, she had surmised that the fans started out pulling for Monfils-rooting for the underdog, as they do in most instances-but that, because Federer was now trailing, they were feeling sorry for him and giving him encouragement. But no. That was not what was happening here.

As ever, from the start, the crowd had been overwhelmingly in Federer's corner. The partisans wanted him to make it through to the final round and to contend for a twilight Grand Slam. They craved one last exhibition of genius and affirmation of belief-the Platonic ideal of tennis, incarnate. From high up you could hear, as his forehands sailed wide, the collective gasp from the quadrant of the upper bowl where fans were able to see right away that a particular shot was out. (As with a fly ball in baseball, it is hard for people in the cheap seats to read the trajectory of certain shots.) The sound of recognition and disappointment then spread. Even down close to the court, in the media section along the base line, reporters, who are supposed to abstain from cheering or rooting, let out grunts of dismay at each plunked backhand. The maestro was missing notes; clarions had become clams. What was happening here? Mortality.

But wait. Not dead yet. Federer won the fourth set, and the fifth, and the match, and a spot in the semifinals, and what seemed a certain matchup in the finals with Novak Djokovic. By Saturday afternoon, after Djokovic was shocked by Kei Nishikori, the tenth seed, Federer, who had been playing beautiful, efficient tennis all summer and, in Queens, had lucked into a draw as forgiving as any he'd seen in many years, seemed to be a lock.

And then he got whipped. Marin Cilic, the fourteenth seed, a man who'd never beat Federer or made a Slam final, ran him off the court. Cilic played with great swagger and assurance, but this edition of Federer was much like the one who'd almost thrown away the previous match: meek, error-prone, sluggish, mortal. To adherents of a certain storyline, the performance was as much an affront as the result, a refutation of faith. It was a travesty of metaphysics, rather than an inspiring upset or a breath of fresh air.

So what is happening here? Other players are winning tennis matches. They are doing so by playing better than their opponents, even the ones, like Federer and Djokovic, who usually win. A couple of new guys, who are likable, hard-working, and talented, get their shot at the big fancy trophy and the giant check. Many fans will have a hard time accepting this. It requires a categorical adjustment, a recognition that a tournament is merely a process of narrowing down a pool of athletes to the one who beats the rest, rather than an expression of the Form of the Good.

And so now we get to see two young men who have had the best weeks of their lives, at least as tennis players, appear in the biggest match they may ever get to play. One of them will win what may turn out to be the only Slam of his career. The other will have nothing to be ashamed of. Each has come out of nowhere in this tournament to play gutsy, lethal tennis. It's one of those rare matches with nothing but upside for all. House money: Nishikori is the first Japanese man-the first Asian, in fact-ever to make a Slam final. And Cilic, a Croatian who grew up in Bosnia, is the first ever finalist to have been suspended for 'incautious use of glucose.' What's not to like?

May the better, rather than the best, man win.



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