Roger Federer made excessively quick work in his third round match against Adrian Mannarino by a score of 6-3, 6-0, 6-2 in under 90 minutes. The Frenchman has been playing the best tennis of his career thus far but was made to look very average by the unrelenting attack of the 17-time Slam champ.
Right from the start the Swiss made his intentions known that he was going to attack Mannarino's 2nd serves. And attack them he did, over and over and over again. In the fourth game of the match he fired three forehand returns off weak 2nd serves and he emphatically grabbed the break. It was literally as easy a match as you could ask for after that. By the third set, Roger was in exhibition mode, trying some crowd-pleasing shots and looking completely untroubled.
34 winners, 20 errors, 19/24 at the net, 92% behind his first serve, all excellent numbers. He also hit 13 return winners and only lost 18 total points on return (in 12 service games).
The big point I want to get across from this match was that Roger was supremely aggressive on the return, many times running around his backhand on the ad side to hit forehands. He didn't want to start the point neutral or in a defensive position, he took the initiative. That is a great thing to see and he will need that effective returning if he wants to beat Nadal in the potential upcoming quarterfinal. But I will go into complete detail about the gameplan Roger must use if and when that time comes.
Up next in the round of 16 is the veteran Tommy Robredo who is the 19th seed at this tournament. He has found rejuvenation after a long battle with injuries. He reached the quarterfinals of the French Open, winning three straight matches from two sets down, the first man to do that since the great Henri Cochet did so in 1927. He will be a tough opponent for Fed and if we know anything, it's that he will force Roger to play well to win comfortably. I expect a tight three sets.
To finish up this post, I want to talk about Lleyton Hewitt's upset of Juan Martin del Potro on Friday. It was an awesome match from the 2001 US Open champion and his trademark fighting spirit was on full display against the 2009 champion.
While watching, I marveled at Hewitt's compact groundstrokes and his innate ability to change the direction of the ball - and many times he went for it on the big points, and it paid off. I had an absolute blast watching it and the Aussie reminded me why he was my first favourite player when I was just a decade old.
As for del Potro, it's clear that his left wrist is still bothering him. He can't hit through his backhand like he should be able to and he rarely ever goes down the line with it these days. His massive forehand is the one shot that has kept him at the top of the game. It must be disappointing having two exits before the Round of 16 this year and one missed Slam (which he would have had a great chance at going deep). He is one of my favourite players so I hope he can string some form together at the end of the year.
Hewitt will take on Evgeny Donskoy in the third round and he could play Tommy Haas in the fourth for the chance to take on the World #1. I would love to see a match between the 32 year-old Lleyton and the 35 year-old Tommy just to show all the new tennis fans the brilliance of the early 2000s.
Until next time,
Kyle.
PS - I am going to be having some news after the US Open about, well, I'll just say ... expansion.
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