That was a very nice match.
Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer had another entertaining encounter. Roger was not in an ideal situation as he was coming out from a very bad period as he was struggling to find his best tennis. The worst part of it for Roger was that on the other side of the net there was Rafa (maybe the worst possible match up for the Swiss) and… Rafa was in great form. So a straight set trash was quite possible. Fortunately that didn’t happen.
Roger played a very good match to win the opener 7-5 with a great shot (see below). After another close set, Rafa managed to win the second one with a late break. In the decider the Spaniard took advantage of an early break to immediately lead 2-0 and win 6-3.
Some Stats.
Rafa won only 6 points more than Roger (101 vs 95) and that means that he Swiss wasn’t overplayed. A very important indicator for Roger was that he played well the important points as he converted 1 break point of 2 and he saved 7 break points out of 9. Roger’s serve was good (not devastating) to fire 4 aces (0 double faults). Interesting enough he was a bit better than Rafa on the second serve to win 62% of the points vs. Rafa’s 60%. So Roger was “in the rally”. Match stats
Federer: It was a good step in the right direction
Roger was happy about his performance (and he was right) to comment “I’m happy with my progress along the way. Could have won tonight, should have won tonight, who knows? But at the end, I think Rafa’s confidence and the way he’s playing at the moment got him through. So for me, I think it was a good step in the right direction.”
The semis vs. Berdych
Rafa will play Tomas Berdych in the semifinal The Czech has defeated Murray 6-3 6-4. Head to head is 14-3 for Rafa (6-2 no hard court). Last time Rafa lost to Tomas it was 6 years ago.
Roger’s hot shot
