Roger Federer has an “imperfect” start of his Basel campaign.
The Swiss sensation was opposed to the world no. 35 Filip Krajinovic that Roger himself dismissed earlier in the year in Indian Wells 6-2 6-1. However, Federer already acknowledged before the match that that was not a good benchmark because on that occasion the Serbian didn’t really play at his best. The world no.3 was right about that.
The match
Everything looked pretty smooth for “King Roger” that won 7 consecutive games at the beginning of the match to reverse a 1-2 deficit in a strong 6-2 2-0 lead. However, things got shaky all of the sudden and after Roger consolidated his lead (3-1) the Maestro was broken 3 consecutive times (!!!) to lose the second set 6-4.
The Swiss started to be nervous on serve and his forehand was not working anymore, but he had to use his experience to regroup and in the 3rd set, he managed to conquer a strong 5-2 lead (2 breaks-up). Still, there was some more work to do as Roger lost his serve for the 4th time (5-3) and he was shaky also when he tried to serve out the match again on a 5-4 scoreline. The Maestro had to recover a 0-30 deficit before winning this thriller 6-2 4-6 6-4. The match ended after 2 hours and 9 minutes.
Next vs. Struff
Roger will face Jan-Lennard Struff in the 2nd round. The head to head is 3-0 for the Swiss.
NERVOUS STUFF
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