BNP Paribas Masters; Roger Federer versus Jurgen Melzer – Match Preview
The Swiss tennis maestro Roger Federer and Jurgen Melzer of Austria are scheduled to meet in the third quarter final match of the day at the 2010 BNP Paribas Masters Men’s singles tournament on Friday. This will be their third career encounter on the ATP
World Tour. Having previously faced each other at Wimbledon and the United States Open in New York, their head-to-head series rests at 2-1 in Roger’s favour.
The 29-year-old Federer is attempting to make his way into his fourth quarter-final in Paris. His previous best results were three quarter final finishes back in 2002, 03 and 08. The Swiss opened his account here on Wednesday with a two-setter victory over
Richard Gasquet of France. The final match score was 6-4, 6-4.
The Swiss superstar comes in with a year-high ten match winning streak and hopes to advance into his 14th quarter-final or better in 2010. Federer grabbed his fourth crown of the season few days ago at the Swiss Indoors Basel after getting the better of
world number two Novak Djokovic in the final. The final match score was 6-4, 3-6, 6-1. It was his eighth title battle of the season and 93rd overall on the tour.
Federer, who is currently ranked number two in the South African Airways ATP list, enters with a win loss mark of 58-12 on the year. He has reached the final round in five of the six events since the year’s final major, the United States Open in New York
back in September.
The sixteen time Grand Slam champion has captured at least one Grand Slam title for the last eight years on the tour. The right hander slipped to number two in the world after French Open where he couldn’t go beyond the quarter final round as the Swiss was
toppled by the world number five Robin Soderling in straight sets. Federer later went to number three after his final eight exit at the grass court Grand Slam tournament in London and stayed there for six weeks before regaining his second spot back in August.
In the opening two ATP World Tour Masters 1000 competitions of the season, he couldn’t perform up to the mark as the Swiss was bundled out in the third round in Indian Wells and fourth round in Miami after starting the year with a semi-final appearance in
Doha during the first week of January.
With the second seed and last year’s winner, Novak Djokovic of Serbia out of the event, tennis fans can only expect Andy Murray to have a strong chance versus the Swiss and that clash may be looming in the final four in Paris.
Should the Swiss native make the title battle, it is tough to picture him falling as Andy Roddick, Nikolay Davydenko, Michael Llodra and Robin Soderling are the contenders remaining on the other half of the main draw. These four players are a combined 5-49
versus Roger in their careers.
World number 12, Melzer on the other hand, comes in with a win loss mark of 49-24 on the season. He recorded his best result of the year by winning a crown in Vienna after brushing aside Haider-Maurer in straight sets.
His other notable performances in 2010 include a title battle run in Hamburg, three semi-final appearances in Dubai, Zagreb and French Open and seven quarter final showings in Auckland, Rotterdam, Madrid, Stuttgart, Umag, Bangkok and ATP World Tour Masters
1000 Shanghai.
The professional tennis ace from Austria has so far won a total of three ATP World Tour singles crown in his career.
Jurgen promises to compete with Roger better than he has in the past, however, the Fed Express really has things together with his serving game. The Swiss is winning a very high percentage of points on his opening serve and he might be too tough for Jurgen
to break.
However, Federer despite of being one of the hot favourites to capture the crown this year will have to play at his very best as Jurgen has been in-form this season as well and so the battle could go in either’s favour.
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