They both hit single-handed backhands and have a crafty low slice – but the difference is that Federer can put more beef on the ball when he wants to. And Federer explained later that he had offered Evans his thanks during the post-match handshake, saying: “I appreciated everything we did together the last few weeks.”Įvans is about as similar a player as you will find on the tour: a Federer tribute act, as one observer put it. In total, the two men had contested more than 20 sets in practice.
And he was on the other side of the net.Įvans had spent the previous two-and-a-half weeks training with Federer, first in Dubai and then on these courts in Doha. Actually, though, there was one man who probably did. I said that no-one had known what to expect. “Five minutes of Federer perfection! It feels like he’s never been away.” “It’s quite the comeback!” he roared as the players went to sit down for the very first changeover. On commentary for Amazon Sport, Jonathan Overend was in ecstasies. Each shot sounded as clean as a bite taken out of a fresh apple. Then, when the action got underway, he found a groove from the start, flushing the ball out of the middle of the racket. How long was the warm-up? What was the time on the shot-clock? What was he supposed to do with the towels, now that the ball kids no longer deal with them? On a blustery evening in the desert city of Doha, Federer began by asking the officials to remind him of the rules. But there were many more moments of genius, including one backhand winner – whipped up and over the net from the shortest and most awkward of distances – which no-one else would have had the audacity or hand skills to pull off.
We might have seen a couple of uncharacteristic flubs – which Federer actually seemed to find funny. Could he really come out and move with his old panther-like grace? He has undergone two keyhole operations on his right knee since then, and celebrated his 39th birthday. Nobody had been quite sure what to expect of Federer’s first match since the 2020 Australian Open, 405 days ago. We saw hints of fatigue, but there was also plenty of his old, sumptuous shotmaking on show as he overcame Dan Evans in three sets: 7-6, 3-6, 7-5. “For me, tennis is like riding a bike.” So said Roger Federer at the weekend, and his first match back found him in fine, freewheeling form.
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