Roger Federer secured his 12th consecutive appearance at the year-ending World Tour Finals, formerly Masters Cup, with a 6-4, 6-4 win over South African Kevin Anderson of the 2nd round of the BNP Paribas Masters.
Federer got a good start, breaking in the first game of the match, and then held serve the rest of the way to grab the first set. He started smoothly again in the second set, getting a double break and going up 5-1 before he ran into a little scare. Serving for the match at 5-2, he was broken by the big man on his 4th break point faced. On his second time serving out the match, he went down 15-40 but used his serve to bail him out of trouble and a few points later he won the match.
Overall, he was pretty solid except for the blip at the end of the match. Though to be fair to him, something clicked in Anderson's head after he went down 5-1 and he started playing much better. After playing poorly for much of the match, suddenly he was not missing and finding the range on his groundstrokes, and it looked like it took Fed by surprise.
Nevertheless, the South African could have been very dangerous and he showed at the end what kind of threat he could have posed had he been more solid throughout the whole match. Next up is Philipp Kolschreiber, who defeated Tommy Haas easily. Roger should win the match in straights but Kohli is a good player and can't be taken lightly.
And now, Roger has a spot in the World Tour Finals where he has 6 wins and two other finals in the last 10 years. Even though he only has one win over a top 10 player all season, coming in January, he has always played some of his best tennis at the event, especially in London, and he will surely be looking to finish the year on a strong note.
Onwards and upwards,
Kyle.
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