It was definately the tightest match that I’ve ever seen Roger Federer played. With what looked like a never ending match which lasted for over 4 hour and 27 mnutes, this was surely going to be one of the greatest match that is going into the record books.
His opponent, Sebia’s 23 year old Janko Tipsarevic, was playing the match of his life. With the final score being 6-7, 7-6, 5-7, 6-1, 10-8 going into Roger’s way, there was really no time to blink an eye and think what will happen next. The match would had really gone either side.
Roger demonstrated some inconsistencies in his game today, bagging up his known and famous strong straight backhand down the line, and making a darn lot of cheap shots and error. It sure send people wondering whether Roger has slipped in performance or did he finally miss his magic touch. He wouldn’t have dropped so many points in the first 3 sets if it wasn’t because of his own mistakes.
Of course, Janko played really good tennis today, and he definately deserves LOTS of credits. Time and time again, the Serb looked like he was gonna to snap in exhaustion, but yet his strong determintation kept him going on until the last ball. He was interviewed earlier before the match, and he sayed that he will play his 100% against Roger. But seriously, that was simply more than 100%, I’ll give him a 200% without a doubt. He was simply inspirational.
The 4th set wasn’t so bad as Janko looks a bit fatique and maybe storing up some energy for the coming 5th set as Roger won browse easily thorugh the 4th. The deciding 5th was simly breathtaking. Janko Tipsarevic was first to serve, so he probably had some advantage. Both men never drop a set while they were serving. And it wasn’t until the 17th set that Roger break Janko’s server and started leading the match at 9-8. The serve came back to Roger and he finishes off the match with a win of 10-8.
If you want a better thriller, this would had been it. Period.
Something is telling me that there will be some really serious challenge for Roger this year. The young guns are rising, getting better and better and I’m not even talking about Nadal.
Some stats
– Roger served 34 aces while Janko made 14.
– Roger reached all grand slams final 10 times in a row, and it would be a really big disappointment if he had lose this one on the first week of the tournament and at the third round. He won last year’s Australian Open without dropping a set, imagine that.
– The last time Roger Federer played a 5 set game was back in 2001 against who but Pete Sampras.
Leave a Reply