Dubai 2017: Qualifier Donskoy saves three match points to down Roger Federer

This was probably not the challenge that many expected the seven-time Dubai champion Roger Federer to face on a cool, late, second-round evening.

The No3 seed and Australian Open champion, playing on almost the closest thing he has to home soil, was against a man ranked 117 with little form, Evgeny Donskoy, a man who at 26 years old was about to play only his 101st main-tour match—and he had won only a third of those, too.

This year, the slender Russian had lost in the first round of three Challenger tournaments, had failed to qualify for Doha and the Australian Open, and his first-round match in Dubai this week was only his second win of the year: the other was to reach the second round in Rotterdam.

Yet he was about to cause the upset of the week, in Dubai or anywhere else on the tennis tour.

It all started so well for Federer, too. After beating the more dangerous Benoit Paire in his opener, he launched into this match against the Russian with vim and vigour, broke in the fourth game to love—with four winners—and then held to love.

Another break, and Federer was 5-1 up, but qualifier Donskoy let rip, clearly with little to lose, and it paid off: He broke back and held. Federer managed to serve out the set at the second time of asking, 6-3.

Unusually for the Swiss after such a swift set, he left court for a comfort break, and lacked the usual sparkle in his movement at the start of the second as Donskoy continued his hot ball-striking for a couple of love holds. And he was playing the better tennis as play came to a grinding halt in the eighth game when one set of lights went off.

After some consultation, they agreed to continue—and the lights came back after a couple of games—but it seemed not to bother Donskoy at all. After Federer struggled to hold via three deuces and a break point, the Russian held to love again, and they headed to a tie-break.

Such a scenario is usually meat and potatoes to Federer: a set up, and with his first serve touching 75 percent, experience and confidence would carry him through—and that looked the case at 5-2 up. But he would blow three match points as Donskoy continued to go for his shots. Federer failed to convert on his own serve and conceded the set, 7-6(7).

Again, Federer put on a surge, breaking the Russian and then holding to love, 5-2. He had only to hold serve, but once again, Donskoy went for broke, and Federer made three uncharacteristic errors, one an easy volley fired wide. It was all square again and a tie-break.

For the third time, Federer seemed to have the win in the bag, racing to a 5-1 lead, but he fluffed a tricky volley into the net, and Donskoy threw in a confidence-sapping return-of-serve cross court winner a la Novak Djokovic to level.

The Russian held his own serve and then Federer fired another volley wide on match point: It was over for him and the Dubai faithful after more than two hours of drama and not a little brilliant tennis from Donskoy.

The Russian admitted he was as surprised as anyone: “Surprised everyone I think today. Whoever win against Roger surprises himself, I think.”

He went on: “You are always enjoying, because Roger is the kind of person that, I mean, everyone love him. Everyone love him. When you see everyone support him, you feel it, like… yeah, logic, it’s fair. I didn’t feel I was against the world. I was just against myself, trying to be focused. That’s it.”

The Russian also admitted he had one interesting person in his support camp as unofficial coach: Mikhail Youzhny, who has known Federer for many, many years. It clearly helped.

As for Federer, he could not get out of the tennis centre quickly enough, and he cut a subdued figure as he waited for the press. He was, he admitted, out of reasons for giving up a lead three times:

“Don’t know where to start, really… I had my chances. I should somehow close it out. Don’t know how it got away, but he did very well, and yeah, it’s a rough one, for sure.”

Asked if he was feeling the after-effects of his Australian efforts and the brouhaha that followed, he was again uncertain: “Look, it could be anything right now. It’s tough to judge this one, you know, because I could have won in two and I’d be already almost hitting the pillow thinking about Pouille. But now here I’m explaining what didn’t go well. Clearly could become quite negative about it, but I won’t. It was a tough loss today. Donskoy did well, like I said. Just gotta move on from here.”

Federer had a thigh problem in the latter stages of that Australian victory, but asserted that he felt was no hang-over from that, only tiredness.

“Timing I thought was off for me today. Legs also felt slower out here tonight. I tried to get myself in shape, and like warm up properly, do all the things I always do… I just never really got going tonight and sort of felt heavy.”

And he made one final interesting admission, this man who has won everything, including a Grand Slam last month: He had become tense:

“I just didn’t know Donskoy. So many times I just didn’t know what his patterns were. I didn’t know what his preferences are… All that stuff got me a little bit tense, and I could never quite play freely, which is quite surprising, considering how I played in Australia. But tennis is this way. Margins are small. Fast court like here, you can’t find much rhythm. Next thing you know, you’re struggling…”

So even the most apparently confident can have those little insecurities—though that does not make this result any less surprising.

The Dubai draw, then, has just three seeds remaining as it heads to the quarter-finals. Donskoy plays one of them, Lucas Pouille. If he wins, he could face the world No1 Andy Murray in the semis.