Roger Federer turned in a second consecutive dream performance on Wednesday to give his home fans more satisfaction as he rolled Serb Janko Tipsarevic 6-3, 6-4 at the Swiss Indoors.
The one-hour effort surprised even the in-form top seed.
“That’s two perfect matches in a row,” said the Swiss, equally ruthless in the first round on Monday. “How much better can it get?”
PHOTO: EPA
“I played well, served well and had hardly any errors. This is about as good as it gets. If I can keep it like this for the whole event, that would be amazing,” he said.
Federer is now into the quarter-finals as he bids to seize back the title he lost to Novak Djokovic a year ago, following a three-year trophy run at the St Jakobshalle, where he got his start in the sport as a teenage ballboy.
However, the world No. 2 does not want to risk over-confidence either.
“I don’t want to get used to this, that could be a danger,” he said. “Beating Janko [who took him to five sets in their last match at the 2008 Australian Open] is a good win. He’s on a Davis Cup finals team after all. I’m happy to get this win, but nothing is guaranteed.”
Federer got the job done in exactly one hour, leaving him plenty of time to cross the road and find his VIP seat at the Champions League fixture between his club Basel and visiting Italian side Roma.
Fourth seed Andy Roddick was planning on dining in at his central city hotel after passing up on the chance to attend the soccer match.
Roddick marked his return to tennis after injuring his knee a fortnight ago in Shanghai with a 7-5, 7-6 (8/6) defeat of compatriot Sam Querrey to reach the second round.
The American, who last played in Basel in a 2003 semi-final, resumed the hunt for a place in the eight-man ATP season final, where three spots remain open.
Roddick hammered his trademark aces with abandon, totting up 16 in just over 90 minutes of battle.
Querrey, another big hitter, managed 16, but put a backhand into the net on Roddick’s first match point to make an early exit on his debut appearance.
“My injury from Asia felt fine,” Roddick said. “After being sick [with glandular fever] in the summer and then the Shanghai injury, it’s good to play a solid match.”
“There is always that element of not knowing what to expect. Playing Sam is tough, we had a high level, and the tie-breaker was not easy. It was a really good match for me,” he said.
In other first-round matches, veteran Czech Radek Stepanek beat Dutchman Thiemo de Bakker 6-3, 7-6 (7/5), while Finn Jarkko Niemimen, a losing finalist against Federer in 2007, defeated German Daniel Brands 6-3, 6-2 in round one.
Paul-Henri Mathieu put in a bid for inclusion on the French Davis Cup finals team to face Serbia with a 6-3, 6-3 victory over recent Stockholm finalist Florian Mayer of Germany.
Dutchman Robin Haase joined Federer in the last eight as he beat the day’s second American, sending out eighth seed John Isner 6-2, 6-7 (5/7), 7-5.
? VALENCIA OPEN 500
AFP, VALENCIA, SPAIN
Defending champion Andy Murray crashed out of the Valencia Open 500 with Argentine Juan Monaco taking advantage of his disappointing display to go through to the quarter-finals 6-2, 3-6, 6-2 on Wednesday.
The Scot, who beat Feliciano Lopez in the last round, took on 12th seed Monaco after winning his last six matches without dropping a set.
They had played three times before and Murray had won twice, both occasions on hard court, the last being just a few weeks ago in the semi-finals of the Masters 1000 in Shanghai where Murray went on to win against Roger Federer in the final.
It was his second ATP title this season after he retained his Toronto crown in August.
Murray struggled from the start though against Monaco, a former top 20 ranked player, and lost the first eight points as he went two games down.
Monaco took the game to the world No. 4 and playing excellent tennis he broke again to win the first set 6-2.
Murray had only managed to get 48 percent of his first serves in, but rallied in the second set after initially losing his serve again, to win four games on the trot and level the match.
The initiative was with Murray, but he returned to commit the same unforced errors and saw his serve broken cheaply before bowing out 6-2.
Frenchman Gael Monfils made light work of opponent Eduardo Schwank, who was out-classed 6-3, 6-3.
The No. 14 in the world takes part in the competition fresh from victory in Montpellier last Sunday and having reached the final in Tokyo three weeks ago.
It was always going to be a tough challenge for Schwank, 50 places further down in the world rankings and on a poor run having gone out in the first round of his last four competitions.
Monfils cruised to a 4-1 lead in the first set superior in all facets of his play, but he notably dropped the tempo and Schwank broke back to trail 4-3. Monfils was never in trouble though and took the next two games.
He went on to break Schwank again at the start of the second set and from there strolled to victory with his Argentine opponent committing almost double the number of unforced errors.
Last year’s runner-up in Valencia, Mikhail Youzhny, and one of the favorites this time was to play qualifier Pablo Cuevas, but the semi-finalist at the US Open in September had to withdraw through injury and his place was taken by lucky loser Albert Ramos-Vinolas.
Having been eliminated in the qualifiers, Ramos-Vinolas was understandably unprepared and appeared nervous as he quickly went three games down against Cuevas who instead of the ominous task of facing Youzhny, now found himself against a player ranked 128th.
Ramos-Vinolas battled back, but lost the first set 6-3. In the second set a marathon fifth game proved crucial as Cuevas broke and went on to win 6-4.
TO THE TOP: After securing the international title on Saturday, Team Taiwan were to face Las Vegas to potentially win their 18th Little League World Series championship A team from Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School won the Little League Baseball World Series’ international title on Saturday by defeating Aruba 1-0 in the annual baseball tournament held in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The Taiwan team, competing under the name Chinese Taipei, were after press time last night to face a team from Las Vegas, Nevada, which beat a team from Fairfield, Connecticut, in the US championship 8-2. Taiwan are seeking to win their first Little League Baseball World Series title since 1996. “Really haven’t taken a moment to data dump right now on Taiwan,” Nevada manager T.J. Fescher said. “They’re a
‘CATASTROPHE’: Despite losing several key forwards in the summer transfer window, Bayern were up 3-0 in the first half before Harry Kane scored a hat-trick in the second Harry Kane hit a hat-trick, Michael Olise a double and newcomer Luis Diaz also scored as Bayern Munich made a “statement” against RB Leipzig 6-0 at home in the Bundesliga season opener on Friday. Bayern’s big-money arrivals, all brought in from the Premier League across the past three seasons, were dominant as the Bavarians begun their title defense in style. Olise scored twice in the first half, either side of a Diaz strike. Not to be outdone, Kane scored three goals in the second half — with two assists coming from Diaz, to bring Bayern’s total to 6-0. Kane told the Bundesliga
Marc Marquez continued his winning streak as he cruised to victory in the Hungarian GP sprint by two seconds on Saturday night to pad his championship lead. It was a seventh straight Sprint victory for the Spaniard, who has also won the last six longer Sunday grand prix races on his factory Ducati. Fabio Di Giannantonio, an Italian with the VR46 Ducati satellite team was a distant second at Balaton Park, followed by his team-mate and compatriot Franco Morbidelli third. Marquez, a six-time world champion, started the race from pole position. “I felt someone really close on the first corner, from there I
Russian Diana Shnaider continued her impressive winning streak in tour-level finals at the Monterrey Open on Saturday, beating compatriot Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 in the WTA 500 event’s final. Shnaider had little trouble in the opening set but struggled in a topsy-turvy second, as Alexandrova clinched the set’s fifth and decisive break at 5-4 to force a decider. Third-seed Shnaider carved out an advantage early on in the third set when she broke Alexandrova in the first game and held serve to go 2-0 up, an advantage she would not relinquish. World No. 12 Shnaider is now unbeaten in her last five
RSS