Roger Federer knocks out David Ferrer in the quarter-finals – Mutua Madrid Open 2012
World number three, Roger Federer, adapted to the new surface perfectly and ousted the Spanish number two, David Ferrer, in the quarter-final of the Mutua Madrid Open on Friday. He clinched the triumph in straight sets 6-4, 6-4
and booked a date with the Serb tennis ace, Janko Tipsarevic.
Federer enhanced his head-to-head tally to 14-0 against Ferrer and more importantly became the first Top-3 seeded player to survive the new surface at Madrid. If he manages to win the title, he will surpass the number two player
in the world, Rafael Nadal, to take his spot and inch a step closer to his dream of reclaiming the top rank.
Ferrer started off in nervous fashion; saved two breakpoints in the opening game to register a serve hold. The Swiss Maestro only dropped a point on his first serve and bagged four out of six points at his rival’s serve to take
the lead of 2-1. He smashed a couple of aces in the second serve game to strengthen his position at 3-1.
Both players capitalized on their serves in the remaining part of the set. Ferrer was not able to test the Swiss even once during the return games. It was a good matchup but the result was obvious because without a breakpoint,
the Spaniard fifth seed was not going to stretch his opponent into a tie-breaker.
The second set started slowly and both players continued the serve capitalization trend for the first half of the set. Scores tickled over to 4-4 and the Spanish players in desperate need to break serve and take a lead to enhance
his chances of enforcing the third set into play.
However, the third seed Swiss read the mind of his opponent and improvised in the ninth game with his drop shots that stretched Ferrer to his limits. It proved to be the longest game of the match and finally the Swiss legend tied
his opponent down with a perfect cross-court backhand winner to take a lead of 5-4.
Federer bagged the following serve game and survived the scare of falling apart at the new surface just like his arch rivals.
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