Federer reaches the Round of 16 at the Australian Open

As you all must know by now since it’s been over 24 hours, Roger Federer is through to the Round of 16 at the Australian Open. He defeated Teymuraz Gabashvili in straight sets, 6-2, 6-2, 6-3 in 1 hour and 41 minutes.

The match started somewhat ominously for Roger as he immediately provided 2 break points. He saved them and held and then for the most part, there were no significant problems. Gabashvili started well too, at one point early on, he was hitting more winners than Roger. Roger meanwhile began to look comfortable and held his second game to 15 and third game to love with three beautiful forehand winners and kept building pressure on the Russian. Sure enough, when serving at 2*-3, three unforced errors gave the Maestro three break point opportunities. Gabashvili saved one but then double-faulted on the 2nd to give Roger the break. Serving to consolidate at 4*-2, Roger got into a bit of trouble with a few errors and some winners from Teymuraz. He gave the Russian a third break point opportunity of the set. However, his serve came to the rescue just in time and he held to go up 5-2*. Gabashvili was 40-15 up in his service game when 3 errors gave the Maestro his first set point. The Russian saved that one but Roger got the opportunity back with a gorgeous forehand winner. Gabashvili netted the next point giving the set to Federer, 6-2 in 33 minutes.

Set two and while Gabashvili pushed him, he held on and the score was 1-0*. Gabashvili then had a very difficult service game as Roger got two break point opportunities, one via a double fault. Nonetheless, after being pushed to deuce 4 times, the Russian held and it was 1 all. After a quick hold to go up 2-1* the same story repeated again. Roger got two more break point opportunities but couldn’t convert. After 3 deuces Teymuraz held to 2 all. Yet another quick hold for the Swiss and looking back at the stats of each set, Roger clearly served the best in this second set with 76% of his first serves going in. In the very next game, though Gabashvili was up 40-30 he soon found himself staring at a break point. A failed volley gave the Swiss the break and Roger was up 4*-2. In the blink of an eye Roger got the score line to 5-2* and Teymuraz had to serve to stay in the set. Maybe the Russian’s spirit was already broken by then; he barely offered resistance and gave Roger two set points. A short rally followed by an error from Teymuraz gave the Swiss the second set 6-2 in 39 minutes.

Set three and yet again, there was a blip in Roger’s concentration as he was quickly down 2 break points at 15-40. Two errors from Gabashvili and two strong serves got Roger out of the hole and he held 1-0*. Gabashvili showed renewed energy perhaps because it was now or never; he held to love to level the score at 1 all. Roger held more comfortably in the next game and pounced in the Russian’s next service game extracting errors to have 3 break points. Gabashvili saved two but Roger grabbed the third and the score was 3*-1. Then, to add insult to injury, Roger consolidated the break with a love hold of his own. Teymuraz held on for his next games despite being constantly pushed by the Maestro and even saving a break point in the process to keep the difference to just one break in this set. At 5*-3 Roger served for the match and he showed no nerves as he served it out to love.  Here are the match stats.Roger’s serve held up quite well for the most part. Though a few more first serves in would have been nice (he had 62%), he served with more consistency than in his Round 1 match. His serves weren’t as sublime as the previous match but that makes sense because that was in indoor conditions where no elements can disturb his line. It was actually quite windy at the Rod Laver Arena during this third round match. He also returned well too and kept his winners to unforced errors ratio nicely positive. His backhand down the line was on song throughout the match which was just gorgeous to see. The only significant dip in his stats was his net points. He missed a few volleys which was strange considering how well he had been placing them in the first few matches.

Nonetheless, given that he found this match tricky, I think it was a solid effort. He didn’t expend too much energy out there either. He has now spent a total of 5 hours and 14 minutes on court and hasn’t dropped a set. Here is the presser and here is the presser clip. Here is the on-court interview with Jim Courier who I was especially pleased to see! I love their interviews! A bonus clip here of Roger’s post-match ESPN interview too 🙂

All this bodes well for his next match which is bound to test him to the limit and then some. He faces Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the next round. There are no secrets here. They have played each other 13 times with the H2H of 9-4 in Roger’s favour. I would say based on the form Jo has shown so far in this Australian Open, after Andy, Rafa and Novak, he is the strongest player left in the draw with Tomas close behind him. He isn’t in awe of Roger and has defeated him at multiple Slams including their last meeting at the French Open in 2013.

Of all the 8 Round of 16 matches on the schedule, this is by far the toughest. Jo is serving very well at the moment and similar to Roger he too likes to play aggressively. Roger will need unbelievable defense and grab break points when he gets them for Jo won’t offer that many to spare. I really don’t know what will happen but I do know I will probably forget to breathe a few times. Here’s hoping the Maestro can rise to the occasion.

Before I conclude, I wanted to highlight some amazing records the Maestro has set so far just with these three wins.
•    With his first round match, he set the record for participating in the highest number of consecutive Grand Slams. This is his 57th Grand Slam in a row.
•    With his second round match win, he set the record for the only player (male or female) to ever win 70 matches at the Australian Open.
•    With his third round match, he went past Agassi and is into 4th place on most number of career matches played with 1,145 matches.
•    With his third round win, he is now tied at 3rd place with Vilas for most number of career matches won with 929 wins.

His humble, friendly attitude, youthful exuberance and general dorkiness can make you forget how legendary this man is. Every time he steps foot on the tennis court, he creates history. Consider yourselves lucky you are here to witness it. I sure as hell do, every single day. C’mon Roger!

*Photos from Zimbio.com*

Roger Federer won his 70th match at the Australian Open!

Roger Federer won his 70th Australian Open match which is a record, although he held the honour of having the highest number of wins at this Slam for a while now. The 70 is just a nice number to celebrate 🙂 Serena Williams is next closest with 61 wins so far. This was also his first match on Hisense Arena (and not on Rod Laver Arena) in 10 years. Last time he played there was in 2004. This is a result of his seeding, plus his non-Aussie opponent, plus the fact that the draw on his half is much heavier than the other. Regardless, we all know what happened in 2004 at the Australian Open so maybe this is a good omen 😉

With this win he also reached Round 3 for the 15th straight year. To reach this milestone he defeated Blaz Kavcic, 6-2, 6-1, 7-6(7-4) in 1 hour and 47 minutes. But actually, that match time doesn’t describe the story accurately. Roger took a total of 54 minutes for the first 2 sets and then 53 for the third. I think that breakdown tells you a bit more of how the match went. Meaning he was vintage Roger in the first two sets, and not-so vintage in the third. 

Roger won the toss, elected to receive and broke Kavcic right away. From the first game on he was very aggressive, approaching the net often. He consolidated just as quickly with great serving and volleys everywhere. Blaz finally got on board the next game to keep the break to just one. Blaz got one point in Roger’s next game through a double fault. Other than that, an ace, a service winner and two more volleys took the score to 3-1*. In Blaz’s net game he offered the Swiss 2 break point opportunities. He saved the first but failed to save the second and was down a double break 1-4*. Another hold by Roger and Blaz was left to serve to stay in the set. Blaz saved a break point and got pushed to deuce twice but held. Roger served it out with two aces to take the set 6-2.

Onto set 2, and despite fighting hard, ultimately Blaz got broken in the opening game. Federer consolidated quickly dropping just one point. In Blaz’s next service game he seemed to be a prop while Roger put on an exhibition. He could only look in awe as he got broken yet again to go down 0-3*. Then a strange blip of concentration happened and a few errors gave Kavcic 3 break points. Roger saved 2, the second with this crazy point which left Blaz laughing. But he couldn’t save the third and out of nowhere Blaz had broken Federer. Perhaps he was still trying to process what he just accomplished because while he was in a daze the Swiss had three break point opportunities on his own serve. But Roger needed only 1 and the double break was back. Spurred on, Roger held to love in under a minute with 2 aces and 2 service winners and left Blaz to serve to stay in the set, down 1*-5. Roger kept pushing him, got him to deuce and then had a set point on Blaz’s serve. A forehand volley winner gave Roger the second set 6-1, in 28 minutes. 

The third set started well for Roger. Despite being pushed in his opening game, Roger hit three aces to hold, 1-0*. But it was clear that Blaz was determined to give it one last go, he had nothing to lose and as a result he started to get settled in and began to serve and return better. He held quite comfortably to get to 1 all and the same continued at 2 all. In Blaz’s third service game, Roger pushed him but then also committed some unforced errors and allowed the Slovenian to hold 3 all. The errors from the Swiss continued as Roger was then pushed to deuce in his next service game; two big serves allowed him to hold. By then Blaz had begun to get into the match and held comfortably to get up to 4 all. Serving at 4*-5 Blaz was pushed again by Roger and yet again, 3 unforced errors from the Swiss allowed Blaz to go up 5 all. Another love hold by Roger and a Blaz hold with a few Federer errors and we were at 6 all and headed to a tie-break.

Blaz got the mini break right away and was up 0-3. Roger held on and got the mini break back to be at 3 all when they changed ends. The Swiss got a mini break of his own as he went up 4*-3. He held to go up 5*-3 but then gave the mini break back to Blaz at 5-4*. Blaz found the net at the end of the rally of his serve and was down a mini break again, 4*-6 and Roger had match point on Kavcic’s serve. Blaz served, an intense rally followed with some pretty points till finally Roger hit a winning volley and game, set, match Federer. Here are the match stats.Roger was aggressive all throughout. He found precision and power in the first two sets and with Blaz looking like a stunned deer at times, the Maestro began to experiment. In the third set Blaz shook himself out of it and reminded us he could really play. Meanwhile, Roger lost a bit of concentration and looked frustrated in that set. He was at times overly aggressive and looked to be rushing things. But I am hoping he did this consciously, that he knew he was 2 sets up and was confident enough he would win and kept up his aggressive approach knowing it might generate errors. I think it was a combination of both Blaz picking it up and Roger being a bit off that led to the close finish. 

Here’s the transcript of the presser and here is the video clip where he speaks about his aggressive play. I’ll also include three more clips: Here is a very tiny highlights clip, here is another post match interview and here is a nice video clip on ‘Expectations’.

Overall I think this was a very good match from Roger. The roof was closed and Roger made optimal use of the indoor conditions. He served much better this match than in Round 1 with no double faults, 76% of first serves in and winning 78% of them. Roger also volleyed brilliantly and no, Edberg didn’t suddenly teach him all that in 3 days you media ‘pundits’. The Maestro has known how to volley since forever. I think Edberg probably helped him to narrow down a general plan of attack and aggression. Plus it also matters who the opponent is and what plan works against him on match day.

I am happy with Roger’s game so far and looking forward to his Round 3 clash with Gabashvili. Gabashvili is ranked 79 and defeated Verdasco in 5 sets to get the chance to play in Round 3. Federer has a 1-0 H2H with him. But that was a long time ago, back in 2007 in Wimbledon, so it doesn’t provide much information. Roger is back at the Rod Laver Arena for his next match and they will meet in the second match of the Day session tomorrow, i.e. Saturday at around 12:30pm local time. The temperature will drastically drop tomorrow so the conditions will be much more different than the previous two matches. No speculations on my part. I just hope he goes out there and does his best. Good luck champ! Allez!

*Photos from the Australian Open site and Zimbio.com*