Perth: Fed Fever has infected the Hopman Cup, and the latest outbreak coincided with a match billed as the future of tennis challenging one of the towering figures of the past. On Wednesday night, in a compelling Australian Open warm-up, the future prevailed.
In Roger Federer's second comeback match following a six-month break with a knee injury, the 35-year-old was beaten 7-6 (7-1), 6-7 (4-7), 7-6 (7-4) by 19-year-old German Alexander Zverev. Federer has won 88 career titles, including 17 majors, Zverev owns one and none respectively. The Swiss spent 302 weeks at No.1; his opponent, ranked 24th with a bullet, is hurtling towards single figures, with Federer the idol of a childhood from which he has only just emerged.
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Hopman Cup record crowd watches Roger Federer
A record-breaking crowd turned out to watch Roger Federer play in the Hopman Cup in Perth. Vision: Hopman Cup - Australian Open Series.
A match that was technically an exhibition was also a fine and lengthy contest before another full and admiring house at the Perth Arena - the attendance of 13,785 breaking the Fed-fuelled record set just two nights before. The pair have their eyes firmly on the Melbourne Park grand slam later this month, but the recent past reveals split results: with Federer winning in Rome on clay and the young upstart triumphing in Halle on grass.
"To beat Roger, you really have to play an unbelievable match from the first point to the last and I thought we both played really well," Zverev said. So how does he do it? Play so well against history's finest? "I don't know! I always play unbelievable against him, it's always nerve-wracking to play against him, and I always play in front of a big crowd which helps me a lot as well. You know you have to play your best tennis or you have zero chances of winning."
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Zverev is bracketed with a group of rising stars that includes Nick Kyrgios, Taylor Fritz, Kyle Edmund, Borna Coric and Karen Khachanov. At 19, he is the only teenager in the top 25 and the youngest player in the world's top 75. He won the St Petersburg title from among his four ATP finals last season and already boasts wins over not just Federer, but Stan Wawrinka and Tomas Berdych.
At 198-centimetres, he is tall, powerful, exciting, explosive. With flowing locks and heavy gold bling, he is a friend, basketball buddy and staunch defender of Kyrgios. One raised in a tennis family that includes dad/coach Alexander and elder brother Mischa, the latter across the net from Kyrgios during the infamous tanking affair in Shanghai.
The Swiss had opened the week with a fairly routine defeat of Dan Evans, but Zverev has far more and bigger weapons, and deployed them all. Thunderous from the back of the court, he is also increasingly adept at the net, and played big-time tennis at so many of the big moments.
"He's very good," Federer said. "He didn't really need to show me that again tonight. I knew that from Rome and Halle. I've practised with him several times and it's nice to see him improving. Every month that goes by you see him adding something more to his game. He's becoming more and more consistent, though that's what you kind of expect from a young guy. I think he's got a wonderful future ahead of him if he keeps working hard and says injury-free, which I believe he will. He's definitely going to be one to watch for another decade or so."
Overall, a high-quality, entertaining match included plenty to please both players so early in the season. Federer again served well, other than a costly lapse at 5-3 in the first set that extended to two double faults in the tiebreak, and moved more like his old self than a mid-thirtysomething returning from half a year out of the game. There were enough classic Fed moments to suggest this comeback will indeed be a fruitful one, and enough time spent on court to make the evening extremely worthwhile.
So what did Federer learn? "Just that it was good to play for two and a half hours.That's a great number to compete in and that was why I was really trying to push to win that second set, to extend the match and get me into a long, tough match, then who knows, maybe win it," he said.
"I couldn't really get into it on the return in the third set. I was disappointed with that side of my game, but then again Sascha's not the smallest guy out there. He can serve big and he showed what he can do. It was tough but I was happy with the way I hung around and I had some really good moments there. I saved a lot of break points, served big for long periods of time.
"It would possibly have been nice to close out that first set. That's maybe the only thing I regret a little bit, and playing a bad breaker in the first set, but who cares really? As long as I'm playing injury-free and feeling good. I pulled up really well after my first match and the mixed as well the next day. This one will feel different. I'll definitely feel muscle pain, but that's also part of the reasons I came here – to get that pain in my body, so that hopefully if I do have a tough match in the beginning at Melbourne I won't have to go through it so extreme over there. This is going to give me a lot of good things."
From a players' perspective, this event may be all about preparing for the Australian Open, but any chance you get to beat Roger Federer, you take. Zverev did, and yet there were no losers. "Roger, a legend, playing against a young guy, is always going to be something special, and I think the tournament sees it that way as well," said the potential future No.1. "It was a highlight of course, I think for us both and also for the tournament."