French Open 2014: Federer averts possible danger to get to the 4th Round - UBITENNIS

French Open 2014: Federer averts possible danger to get to the 4th Round

By Cordell Hackshaw
5 Min Read

TENNIS FRENCH OPEN 2014 – The fans of Roger Federer must have been in a right panic with his state of play against Dmitry Tursunov, a man has never beaten him in all of their four previous meetings. Federer looked rather passive throughout much of the match, particularly on break points and randomly dropped a set. Nonetheless, the Swiss moved on to the Round of 16 in 4 sets 7-5(7) 6-7 6-2 6-4. Cordell Hackshaw

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The fans of Roger Federer (4) must have been in a right panic with his state of play against Dmitry Tursunov (31), a man has never beaten him in all of their four previous meetings. Federer looked rather passive throughout much of the match, particularly on break points and randomly dropped a set. Nonetheless, the Swiss moved on to the Round of 16 in 4 sets 7-5 (7)6-7 6-2 6-4. He would have much to consider if he hopes to get pass an in-form Ernests Gulbis (17) or even contend for the title against the likes of Novak Djokovic (2) and Rafael Nadal (1) in later rounds. “I’m pleased to be through. Like expected, it was not a straightforward, easy match where I knew that Dmitry is going to try different things, play aggressive, serve well at times and then take big cuts at the ball…So I’m pleased I found a way and played it sort of solid and tough toward the very end,” Federer said after the match.

The match started out rather even as both players were trying to find their range in the heavy conditions. Federer had two break points in the 6th game but could not convert as did Tursunov in the 7th game. Matters remained on serve until the 12th game when Tursunov was serving to force the set into tiebreaker. His lack of concentration saw him down triple break points and Federer taking one of them for the set 7-5 after 41 minutes. In the 2nd set, players held serve until deep in the set when at 6-5 Federer earned triple set points but this time around he did not convert and the set was decided by a tiebreaker. Federer raced out to a 4-1 but yield the advantage after careless errors. Tursunov knew opportunities like this were rare and soon capitalized. He took the 2nd set 7-6(7).

Federer sensing the urgency of the matter took charge of the 3rd set very early on as he broke Tursunov in the opening game and got ahead 2-0 before Tursunov was able to get on the scoreboard. Down 1-2, Tursunov asked for the trainer to deal with a sudden groin injury which affected his movements for the rest of the match. He left the court for a few minutes for treatment. Upon resumption of play, Federer continued his campaign to seize control of the match as he broke Tursunov again and closed out the set 6-2. Federer saw more break opportunities in the 4th set and he converted one to go up 5-3 after he held serve. Tursunov could do little else but keep the score line respectable as Federer closed out the match 7-5 6-7 6-2 6-4.

Federer assessed his own performance thus far in the tournament: “After three rounds, I have got all the information. Today it was a tough match, had to defend well because he was a very aggressive player…but I’ve got my bearings now, my landmarks on court.” Both Federer and Tursunov spoke about Federer’s next match against Gulbis. Federer noted, “He has a great serve, and he’s very enterprising of the second serve….He has a great game, and he can do lots of great things, thanks to his game…He can be very good against the best players. He’s confident. He’s brimming with confidence, and I’m delighted to play against him.” Tursunov added, “Gulbis definitely is a person that has enough weapons to injure  not to injure, but to trouble Roger.” It would be a lot of trouble for Federer if Gulbis continues to serve the way he did against Radek Stepanek and Federer’s low break point conversion rate persists into that match. He was 4/21 for this match and this will not do against the likes of future opponents from here on in.

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