Basel: Federer beats Istoming to have huge chances to qualify to London

That wasn’t a perfect Federer, but it was good enough to reach the quarters in Basel and have serious chance to qualify for London.

The Match

Roger didn’t start at his best. He was committing many unforced errors on his forehand and he was missing many opportunities on short balls. The Maestro lost the opening set in unfashionable way and the disappointing stuff was also that Istomin wasn’t really playing a smashing tennis.  A break in the 5th game was fatal for Roger.

In the second set the Maestro started to play a bit better. The service was biting a little bit more and Federer got the decisive break in the 6th game (4-2) to wrap up the second set 6-3.

The decider was a walk in the park for the Maestro that broke Istomin in the 3rd (2-1) and 5th (4-1) game to grab a decisive 5-1 lead. The third set ended 6-2.

Roger played a good match in the second and third set. Once again the Swiss struggled with his break point conversion (3 out of 12) and he didn’t use his serve as in the nice old days, but this can be the right direction to be back at the top of the rankings. Match Stats

Roger: It was nice seeing the crowd fight for me

“I think the crowd rarely gets the opportunity to see me play three sets, whether good or bad. It was nice seeing the crowd fight for me and try to get me back into the match. It gives you that extra push to try harder.” said Roger

Road to London

Roger position is becoming stronger and stronger. There are 4 players for 3 spots and Federer is definitely the best positions as Tsonga is unfit and he couldn’t play this week; Wawrinka and Gasquet both crashed out in the opener in Basel. So.. chances are quite high.

Next with Dimitrov?

We may have a super quarters in Basel as Roger may play a “seriously” in form Grigor Dimitrov (alias Baby Federer) in the quarters. Grigor still has to face Dolgopolov before reaching Roger, but that would be a match not to be missed.