INDIAN WELLS, Calif. -- The last time Roger Federer had an 11 a.m. start time, he was 23 and sporting long hair. It came here at Indian Wells in a best-of-five 2005 final he won in straight sets against Lleyton Hewitt to capture his second of five titles at the BNP Paribas Open.
On Saturday, Federer walked onto center court in the first match of the day, this time against unseeded Borna Coric, as fans were still filing into their seats. It was an experience the world No. 1 admitted he wasn't accustom to, but one that didn't stop him from rallying to earn a spot in Sunday's final with a 5-7, 6-4, 6-4 win.
"It was early today," Federer said after the match. "I feel like I just woke up."
Federer is clearly not a morning person, and he cited Saturday's schedule as a possible explanation for his slow start in the match. He dropped the first set 7-5, the first frame he had lost all tournament. He also credited his opponent, the confident-beyond-his-21-years Coric, for taking advantage of his sloppy play.
"It was definitely a change of the rhythm," Federer said. "You have to force yourself to go to bed early, because you know you're trying everything just to be really ready for an 11:00 start. I woke up early this morning, got out, practiced and tried to get a sweat going. It's just different, and different is good sometimes.
"Borna played a great match. He was very steady. I can see why he caused a lot of problems to a lot of players, and he's only going to improve from here."
When talking about Federer, it's easy to get lost in the weeds dissecting his weightiest attributes. What makes him the greatest player in the game, a 36-year-old who seems, against all odds, to be improving with age? Is it his effortless elegance, his finesse, his powerful backhand winners, his freakishly effective serve? On Saturday, it was none of that.
The most striking thing about Federer's game Saturday was that he did what Venus Williams and No. 1 Simona Halep were unable to do less than 24 hours earlier: find a way to win against a young, streaking player with nothing to lose. Federer dug deep and played with grit. When his game plan wasn't working, he made adjustments. The most beautiful player in the game won ugly. But what matters is that he won.
"He was not playing great," Coric said in his postmatch news conference. "Many players would lose the match very quickly. But he stayed in the match and he pushed me. He basically said to me, 'OK, you need to win the match. I'm not going to give the match to you.' Many other players, especially because I was playing very good and I was not missing, would just give the match away. He didn't do it. He's Roger Federer. He's the whole package."
After going down 7-5, 4-2 and making uncharacteristic error after uncharacteristic error, Federer fought back to win the final four games of the second set, breaking Coric twice for the first time all match. In the final set, which saw five breaks, Federer won the final three games to seal the victory.
"When you are confident and experienced and you have that combination, there's no real need to panic," Federer said, "because you can assess the situation quite easily. You're understanding that the opponent is playing better. It's breezy. It's hard to play offense. He was defending well. It was a close match even in the second set. If you look back at how many close calls we had in the important moments, things could have shifted either way for both of us.
"But you need to have a very positive mindset. You need to be match-tough, you need to be confident, have experience, and I think I have a bit of all of that right now, and I think that's the reason I won again today. But it didn't come easy."
Federer had yet to lose a set in this tournament before Saturday, and he still has yet to drop a match this year. With his win, which took 2 hours, 20 minutes, he is now 17-0 in 2018, his best start to a season. Federer next faces 6-foot-6 powerhouse Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina, with whom he has a storied rivalry.
The men have played each other 24 times, and Federer has won 18 of those encounters. But del Potro handed Federer perhaps his biggest loss of the past year, a four-set stunner in the quarterfinals of the 2017 US Open.
"We have had a lot of close matches, big matches," Federer said. "We have an interesting matchup. We both know what the other is trying to do, and we try to stop the other person from doing it. But it's hard when me or him is in full flight. It's basically an arm wrestle the whole time, and I think we enjoy that."
There's something else Federer should enjoy: Sunday's start time -- "not before 1 p.m."