Roger Federer defeats Wawrinka French Open quarters
Defending Champion Roger Federer is leading a group of strong players who made it to the quarter-finals of the French Open on Sunday. The players left Roland Garros with big smiles on their faces. Federer was the first one to go through to the next round after beating his Olympic doubles partner Stanislas Wawrinka with a score line of 6-3, 7-6 and 6-2 in a third round match that went on for more than two hours. Subsequently, the red hot Robin Soderling will meet Federer in the quarter-finals of the French Open. The second semi-final will feature Tomas Berdych and Mikhail Youzhny. Tomas broke Andy Murray’s French Open dream in a third round match while the latter won a match against Jo Wilfried Tsonga to reach the quarter-finals of the coveted trophy.
Despite the good news, the organizers of the French Open 2010 have received scathing criticism in the media all around the globe. Match scheduling has been a matter of great concern as Justin Henin had to play tennis for five consecutive days. As a reaction, the men’s matches have been scheduled later in the day while the fourth round matches of the women’s singles will be played during the early part of the day. At the Philippe Chatrier court, the proceedings for the mens matches were opened by Roger Federer in a match against 20th seed Stanislas Wawrinka.
The level of play was not exceptional in the match due to the wind factor. As a result it became very difficult for the players to adjust to it. The breeze was stiff throughout the match and kept on changing directions from north to south or from east to west. Due to this inconsistent behavior of the wind, it became difficult for both the players to decide as to which direction was better for them. The situation grew worse when the wind started coming from the side ways. As a result, small adjustment steps for the first serves were the key to the match.
Having started the proceedings, Wawrinka during the third game of his first set found him wanting. The player got himself into such a situation by displaying a bad show of Tennis. On the other hand, Federer picked up the very first opportunity that came his way in order to go up by two sets to one. Wawrinka, towards the start of the second set had a chance to make up for his poor performance in the first set. In the end, it turned out to be the only chance for him to come back into the set. The crowd saw a flawless show of tennis by world number one, Roger Federer. He made sure that for the rest of the match, no other break point should be provided to his opponent. Till the 9th game of the quarter-final, Wawrinka held the serve. However, Federer with his pace along with his brilliant technique left Wawrinka far behind in the game. Federer, with an excellent forehand pass finished off the first set with a score of 6-3. The entire match showed Wawrinka’s lack of ability to keep up with Roger’s perfect game. The match hardly saw any long rallies. The world number one player showed the needed aggression at the right time of the set. He played with a strategy by focusing his opponent’s forehand that worked wonders for him.
Towards the beginning of the second set of the match, Federer was lost in focus and concentration in the match. On the contrary, Wawrinka showed some confidence through his first serves along with a glorious bank hand that resembled to Federer’s shots to some extent. He got three breakpoints through careless errors by Federer. This time round, the younger Swiss fully availed the golden opportunities thrown to him. However, from there onwards, the match situation went extremely horrible for him as Federer made a comeback. With this, Wawrinka’s confidence seemed to be in disarray as he looked completely helpless against the might and class of the Swiss man. Federer won the third and fifth game to leave the panick-stricken Wawrinka with a lot of things to think about.
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