Roger Federer makes progress at Monte Carlo, defeats Marin Cilic in third round
Former World Number 1 Roger Federer undid Croatian tennis pro Marin Cilic at the 2011 Monte Carlo Masters defeating his opponent in the third round of the tournament. The match was an easy one for Federer, who concluded it with a 6-4, 6-3 win in a little over an hour and eleven minutes.
Perhaps the surprising thing about this match, at first glance, is that Roger Federer did not manage to score any aces during the entire meeting. Cilic, on the other hand, fired off three; however, these were greatly negated by the two double faults which he committed. Federer kept his game free of careless errors like these, and also won 79 per cent of his first serve points. In addition to this, the Swiss Maestro went on to save the only break point he was lead to. Cilic was broken twice by Roger Federer, out of four break point opportunities. The match ended with the Swiss World Number 3 taking 60 of the total of 106 points to win with a total of 57 per cent. The final score-line was 6-4, 6-3.
The two players now have a head to head record of 2-0 to Roger Federer, after their last meeting in 2008. This first match was held on hard courts in France at the 2008 ATP Masters Series Paris, with Federer setting up a similar score-line of 6-3, 6-4 to send Cilic home. He himself proceeded to the quarterfinals of the Masters Series event. He was defeated by eleventh seed American James Blake in this round.
Roger Federer was expected to win this match without much of an effort, as the player is ranked significantly higher than World Number 22 Marin Cilic. He is also more experienced, and has won 67 career titles in comparison to Cilic’s 5.
His victory in this round of the tournament has helped Roger Federer to set up a quarterfinal match against either clay court specialist Nicolas Almagro of Spain, or Austrian tennis pro Jurgen Melzer.
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