By Cheryl Jones
Borna Coric is not a member of the ATP’s touted NextGen fraternity, but he is a recent grad, having turned 21 last November. He pulled away from Roger Federer in the third set in the Gerry Weber Open final that was contested today and managed to grab the title from the all-time winner here in two hours and six minutes, 7-6, 3-6, 6-2. The packed stadium was anxious to see if history would be made by the Swiss man who had taken home the trophy nine times before. The roof was closed. Rain was in the forecast. But, there wouldn’t be a pause in the play.
Coric knew he wasn’t the favourite to win, but he took that in stride when he was asked yesterday about his chances to defeat the crowd favourite. He said, “I have really nothing to lose tomorrow. So, I can go out there and I can just try to play my best tennis.” True to his word, the young man from Croatia played a well-managed match, because as he said, he really had nothing to lose. After the match was in the record books, he was the player who had the win.
A Federer victory could have made it number ten at the GWO, but it did not come to pass. He seemed to be playing sluggish tennis all week, and frankly he didn’t seem as if he had the energy to compete on the same level with the twenty-one year old from Croatia who played a very steady game.
Coric was the first Croat to reach the final in Halle. He has been on the “watch for this one” radar for a number of years and in 2014, was named the ATP Star of Tomorrow. Today isn’t quite tomorrow, but it seemed good enough for the young man who hails from Zagreb but now lives in Dubai. In the first round in Halle, he took out World Number 3, Alexander Zverev 6-1, 6-4. (Zverev is a member of that touted fraternity called lovingly the NextGen.) Coric hadn’t dropped a set until Federer took the second one today, aided by a few lucky bounces.
After the match, Coric was circumspect when he was asked how he managed to pull off the win, “So I just try to focus on myself and not to think about all the other stuff, all the statistics or anything else. I just try to focus on my game plan.”
Federer spoke of his energy level after the match and it seemed that he hadn’t felt tired on the inside, but from the stands, that hadn’t been the case. He said, “But, credit to him to play really, really quality tennis at the very end of that first set and then in the third as well. He never really dropped his level and that was it. So, it was an unfortunate match for me but credit to Borna to really come out and play a tough match.” In trying to explain what went wrong, Federer said, “I think I played alright. I can definitely play better. But for the most part you play as good as you can and you know, the conditions were cold, so it clearly played a bit different than in warm weather.”
Federer has a week to prepare for Wimbledon where the weather forecasts have called for much warmer days. He wasn’t apologetic for his loss, because he really always plays his best tennis, regardless of the elements. With a sigh, he said, “I’m definitely going to leave with my head high, thinking it’s been a good run. Stuttgart and here and I’m definitely looking forward to some recovery time next week and just some easy preparation. I love going to Wimbledon and being the defending champion always creates pressure. So regardless of whether I won or lost here, I will be one of the favourites there. But all of that stuff doesn’t matter. I just really need to make sure I play great tennis from the get-go and hopefully I can do that there again.”
Borna Coric’s ATP ranking of 34 should move up a place or two, and it’s likely that Federer’s will drop back to Number 2 once again. But, moving on, it’s really just as Linda Ellerbee always said at the close of her news chronicles, “And so it goes…”
