What the Centre Court surface gave to Roger Federer on Tuesday it was to take away from his close contemporary Serena Williams.
The slippery court in effect provided the great Swiss with safe passage through to the second round, when his opponent Adrian Mannarino had to retire after badly wrenching his knee with the match in the balance.
When it later deprived Williams of her dream of winning a 24th Grand Slam title, Federer was full of sympathy for his fellow superstar.
Veteran Roger Federer progressed to the second round of Wimbledon on Tuesday
His opponent Adrian Mannarino was forced to retire after wrenching his knee in the fourth set
‘This is obviously terrible that it’s back-to-back matches and it hits Serena as well. Oh, my God, I can’t believe it,’ said Federer. Mannarino had earlier been forced to quit with the score reading 6-4, 6-7, 3-6, 6-2.
The 33-year-old fell on the baseline when trailing 4-2 in the fourth, and tried to soldier on but found that he could no longer push off properly on his serve.
As Federer observed, difficult conditions underfoot at the start of Wimbledon are nothing new, but he does feel that when the roof is closed it increases the effect.
‘It feels a tad more slippery under the roof,’ he said. ‘You have to move very, very carefully out there. If you push too hard in the wrong moments, you go down.
Federer, who has had two knee surgeris, admitted it was a terrible ending to the match
‘I feel it’s drier during the day. With the wind and all that stuff, it takes the moisture out of the grass. But this is obviously terrible.
‘I don’t think it plays very different. This is what I told my team, they thought I moved very well. Under the circumstances, those first two matches are always extremely difficult.
‘It’s always been like this. For a lot of players it’s key to get through those first two rounds because the grass is more slippery, it is more soft. As the tournament progresses, usually it gets harder and easier to move on.
‘As I was walking out, the referee asked me how I was feeling about the court. I said I think the court plays normally as we know it.’
Federer has seen it all, of course, and his surefootedness is one reason why he has won eight titles at the All England Club.
As someone who has just come back from two knee surgeries he found it difficult to watch Mannarino in pain.
‘It was just a terrible ending, one I don’t like to see,’ he said. ‘I just felt really down, especially with everything I went through with my knee. That was his knee, as well. I hope he’s not out for a long time.’
Federer also had sympathy for Serena Williams, who also had to withdraw with injury
The damp atmosphere in recent days will not have helped conditions at SW19. Mannarino pointed out that they were very different from his grass court preparation at last week’s ATP event in Mallorca.
‘I heard a big crack and I knew straight away that I wouldn’t be able to do anything any more,’ he said, describing the injury as a sprain.
‘I’m not used to playing on Centre Court. Last week in Spain the weather was really dry and the courts were not slippery at all. I didn’t have much time to practice before the match and the court definitely looked slippery to me.
‘Every time I tried to push on my feet or change direction I was not comfortable with that.’
The Swiss said that Centre Court felt more slippery and damp when the roof was closed
Federer lives to tell his tale, having avoided what would have been a first opening round defeat at Wimbledon since 2002. He now faces another Frenchman in Richard Gasquet, against whom he has a 18-2 record. He is still short of matches and will doubtless improve, providing he can stick around to the second week.
He will certainly need to rediscover his touch in tiebreaks. He lost three of them in his last match on Centre Court, the shattering defeat in 2019 by Novak Djokovic, and made serious errors in the one he played here.
The regroup had begun in the fourth set and he might have got past Mannarino anyway, but this was not the start he was looking for.