Roger Federer flies through Halle opener, to face elder Zverev brother in quarterfinals – By Ricky Dimon

Written by: on 21st June 2017
Roger Federer flies through Halle opener, to face elder Zverev brother in quarterfinals - By Ricky Dimon  |

Roger Federer dropped his first grass-court match of the year this past week in Stuttgart, but he recovered with a 6-3, 6-1 demolition of Yuichi Sugita in the opening round of the Gerry Weber Open on Tuesday. Federer fired eight aces without double-faulting a single time to get the job done in only 52 minutes.

“I played some good tennis–some nice points,” the 18-time Grand Slam champion commented. “I played the way I wanted to play: aggressive, took charge from the baseline and served well. Overall, I’m very happy.”

Federer faced Sugita after having been scheduled to meet Yen-Hsun Lu, but Chinese Taipei’s top player withdrew because of an arm injury. Sugita’s lone highlight came when he stormed back from a 40-0, triple match point deficit with Federer serving at 5-0 in the second set. The Japanese lucky loser, who fell to Mikhail Youzhny in qualifying when the Russian converted his 12th match point, ended up breaking serve from out of nowhere. But Federer had no trouble returning the favor at 5-1 to advance.

“I found out around the same time that everybody else did; around 12 o’clock,” Federer explained. “Then I wasn’t sure if it was going to be Sugita or somebody else. I had to wait and see if there were going to be any more changes and a different opponent coming my way. I saw the third-set breaker between Sugita and Youzhny. I saw the last 20 points of that epic match.

“I had a little bit of an idea how [Sugita] plays. I’ve seen him practise here and he’s really made a run recently. I got some info from coaches and other players and coaches, so I got the full scouting report. But of course, I tried to play on my terms.”

It marked Federer’s 1,100th career match victory on the ATP Tour.

“[The milestone] was mentioned in Stuttgart but I had forgotten about it,” the 35-year-old Swiss said. “I appreciate these numbers way more today than ever before. I think I can embrace them more. It’s a big number and I’m very happy to have a chance to hopefully add some more wins to that number.”

Next up for Federer is a rematch of an Australian Open quarterfinal with Mischa Zverev.

Federer and Zverev will be facing each other for the fourth time in their careers on Thursday. All three of their previous meetings have gone Federer’s way and he is 7-0 in total sets against Zverev and a even a perfect 12-0 in total games in Halle (they also clashed in the 2013 quarterfinals, with Federer issuing a 6-0, 6-0 double-bagel). He most recently cruised 6-1, 7-5, 6-2 in this year’s Australian Open quarterfinals.

Zverev struggled after making his quarterfinal run Down Under, but he made a surprising clay-court final appearance in Geneva as a qualifier (lost to Stan Wawrinka in three sets). The 29-year-old German reached the Stuttgart semifinals last week and beat qualifier Lukas Lacko 6-4, 6-4 on Tuesday in Halle.


Ricky contributes to 10sballs.com and also maintains his own tennis website, The Grandstand. You can follow him on twitter at @Dimonator.

 

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