Roger Federer Takes Home Australian Open Title In Five-Set Classic

Tears of joy for Roger Federer | Australian Open 2017

Switzerland"s Roger Federer serves against Spain"s Rafael Nadal during the men"s singles final on day 14 of the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne on January 29, 2017. Greg Wood/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

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Switzerland"s Roger Federer serves against Spain"s Rafael Nadal during the men"s singles final on day 14 of the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne on January 29, 2017.

Greg Wood/AFP/Getty Images

Roger Federer won his 18th Grand Slam title and put some extra distance on the all-time list between himself and Rafael Nadal, the man he beat 6-4, 3-6, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 in a vintage Australian Open final on Sunday night.

It was the 35-year-old Federer"s first major title since Wimbledon in 2012, his first in Australia since 2010, and it reversed the status quo against his nemesis, Nadal.

Both players were returning from extended layoffs Federer for six months after Wimbledon with an injured left knee; Nadal for a couple of months with an injured left wrist and were seeded 17th and ninth respectively.

"It"s been a different last six months, I wasn"t sure I was going to make it here but here I am we made it," federer said after accepting the trophy from Australian great Rod Laver, who lends his name to the main stadium at Melbourne Park.

"I would have been happy to lose too, to be honest. The comeback was perfect as it was. Tennis is a tough sport, there"s no draws. If there was going to be one, I would have been happy to have it tonight and share it with Rafa, really."

Federer had lost six of the previous eight Grand Slam finals he"d played against Nadal, and had only previously beaten the left-handed Spaniard in 11 of their 34 matches.

Nadal remains equal second with Pete Sampras on the all-time list, with the last of Nadal"s 14 majors coming at Roland Garros in 2014.

He missed his chance to be the first man in the Open era to win each of the four Grand Slams twice. Instead, Federer became the first man in the Open era to win three Grand Slam titles at least five times (Wimbledon 7 titles, U.S. Open 5, Australian Open 5 and French Open 1).

After four sets where the momentum swung alternately from one player to the next, the fifth had all the tension and drama that these two players are famous for.

Nadal went up an early break and it seemed as if the injury time-out Federer needed after the fourth set may have been an indicator of things to come.But the Swiss star rallied, and broke back in a pivotal sixth game and took control in a period when he won 10 straight points.

Nadal saved three break points in the eighth game but lost momentum again when Federer finished off a 26-shot rally the longest of the match with a forehand winner down the line.

Consecutive forehand errors gave Federer the pivotal break for 5-3, but Nadal made him work for the very last point.

Serving for the match, Federer had to save two break points with an ace and a forehand winner.

At deuce, he was called for a double-fault but challenged the out call on his second serve. The call was overturned, and he got to play two.

Not long after, he fired an ace to get his second match point and hit a forehand crosscourt winner to finish off.

His celebrations were delayed, though, when Nadal challenged the call. Federer watched the replay on the tournament screen, and leaped for joy when it showed his last shot was in. His 100th match at the Australian Open ended with his fifth title at Melbourne Park.

"Congratulation to Roger ... Just amazing, the way he"s playing after such a long time of him not being on the tour," Nadal said. "For sure, you have been working a lot to make that happen. So congratulations."

Nadal spent two months recovering from a left wrist injury before heading to Brisbane for a warmup tournament, breaking his usual routine. He reached the quarterfinals there, and had no expectations of reaching the final in Australia.

"I had some hard time not being able to compete in full condition. ... some injuries, well not new for me, but still tough when it happens," Nadal said. "I fight a lot these two weeks. Today, a great match, probably Roger deserved it a little bit more than me."

No two players had met more often in Grand Slam finals in the Open era, and Nadal had previously dominated. But they hadn"t met in a major final since the 2011 French Open, won by Nadal.

Three months ago, they were both on breaks when Federer joined Nadal in Mallorca for the opening of the Spaniard"s tennis academy and the pair joked about ever being able to contend for majors again.

Yet here they were, first Grand Slam tournament of the season, renewing the classic rivalry that saw them dominate tennis a decade ago.

The long-odds final No. 9 against No. 17 unfolded after six-time champion Novak Djokovic was shockingly upset by No. 117-ranked Denis Istomin in the second round and top-ranked Andy Murray, a five-time losing finalist in Australia, went out in the fourth round to left-handed serve-volleyer Mischa Zverev.

Federer beat Zverev in the quarterfinals and U.S. Open champion Stan Wawrinka in an all-Swiss semifinal to reach the championship match. The six years between his Australian titles set a record, too, longer than the five years that both Boris Becker and Andre Agassi had between championships in Melbourne.

It capped a remarkable weekend for 30-somethings all four singles finalists were 30 or older after Serena Williams beat her sister Venus Williams in the women"s final to capture her Open-era record 23rd Grand Slam title.

Source: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/01/29/512273064/roger-federer-takes-home-australian-open-title-in-five-set-classic

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Raonic first Canadian man to reach final

Roger Federer quarter-final press conference

WIMBLEDON (CNN) - When Roger Federer saved three match points against Marin Cilic in the Wimbledon quarterfinals Wednesday, you couldn"t help but wonder if destiny was on the seven-time champion"s side.

It didn"t take long to get the answer, and if you were one of the millions of Federer fans around the world, that answer wasn"t very appetizing.

Federer confronted a similarly towering, big-serving rival in the semifinals in Milos Raonic, and this time exited in five sets to quash the 34-year-old"s hopes -- not to mention those of his faithful, adoring supporters -- of becoming the first man to claim eight Wimbledon titles.

Whereas 2014 U.S. Open champion Cilic will feel he should have ousted Federer, the latter leaves SW19 thinking he should have prevailed against the sixth-seeded Raonic.

"This one clearly hurts because I felt I could have had it," he told reporters. "So close. It was really so, so close.

"There were opportunities there."

As is sometimes the case when Federer loses, he went from the court to the interview room almost immediately, not wanting to linger, even if he was at his second home.

"Yeah, so opportunities were all around the fourth set. I think I pushed him on a few service games to get the break. But somehow I couldn"t get it done."

Instead Raonic triumphed 6-3 6-7 (3-7) 4-6 7-5 6-3 to become the second Canadian to reach a grand slam singles final after Eugenie Bouchard did it here at Wimbledon two years ago.

Coming up short in his previous two grand slam semifinals -- once to Federer at SW19 in 2014 and to Andy Murray at the Australian Open this year as injury surfaced -- his time has arrived at the age of 25.

"Obviously what happened here two years ago, I was very disappointed with," Raonic told reporters. "Today I sort of persevered. I was sort of plugging away. I was struggling through many parts of the match. He gave me a little opening towards the end of the fourth. I made the most of it.

"The attitude kept me in the match. I think that"s what made the biggest difference. I was quite vocal, but I was always positive. I was always looking for a solution."

On Sunday, Raonic meets British second seed Murray, his conqueror in the final of the grass-court warmup at London"s Queen"s Club last month.

The 2013 champion brushed aside 2010 finalist Tomas Berdych 6-3 6-3 6-3 in Friday"s second semi.

Murray, unlike Raonic, is a veteran of grand slam finals but is desperate to try to better an unflattering 2-8 mark.

Those assembled on Centre Court witnessed history Friday: It was the first time Federer lost a Wimbledon semifinal in 11 attempts. It was probably the first time, too, that Federer called the trainer for two different issues.

At the end of the fourth set his right thigh needed attention, and then at 1-2 in the fifth he slipped -- a further anomaly -- almost rolling his left ankle and appearing to tweak his left knee.

Both incidents may have played a considerable part in the outcome.

Was the thigh bothering Federer in the last game of the fourth set, when he inexplicably dropped serve from 40-0, hitting consecutive double faults from 40-15? Federer, who also double faulted on break point in the first set, didn"t produce one double fault against Cilic.

When he returned to the court in the fourth game of the fifth following the slip, the first point he faced was a break chance for Raonic. Although he saved it, Federer was broken later in the game following a riveting exchange near the net that culminated with Raonic"s forehand passing shot.

Down 3-1, Federer never recovered and Raonic registered a second straight win over the 17-time grand slam winner.

"I had missed my chances by then already, enough," he said. "Maybe I could have stuck around better if I would have saved break points. Very disappointing half an hour there for me, getting broken at 6?5, getting broken again at 2?1, having the slip.

"Who knows what happens there. But it was a very disappointing end to the match for me."

Indeed. Federer led on Raonic"s booming serve four straight times in the fourth, including 15-40 at 2-2 and 0-30 at 5-5, unable to gain what would have been the terminal break. Overall, he went 1-for-9 on break points.

Despite Raonic mixing things up by serving to Federer"s body, his overall serving numbers -- 23 aces and 11 double faults -- suggest this wasn"t his greatest delivery day.

Carlos Moya, one of Raonic"s grand slam-winning coaches -- three-time Wimbledon champion John McEnroe, who came on board last month, is the other -- pointed to the conclusion of the fourth as the turning point.

"Roger, I would say he kind of opened the door for Milos to have the chance to come back -- and at this stage of the tournament you pay for that," Moya told a group of reporters. "That"s what I think because Milos was struggling a little bit on Roger"s serve and as soon as he had the chance there and he converted, in the fifth set he had a slight advantage (after) coming from behind and probably that game was key."

Entering Wimbledon, Federer perhaps would have been happy enough to make the semifinals given he skipped the French Open and other chunks of the campaign due to back and knee injuries.

But his good fortune against Cilic and the absence of nemesis Novak Djokovic in the second week -- he was upset by Sam Querrey in the third round -- might have got Federer thinking about landing an 18th major and first since beating Murray in the Wimbledon final four years ago. From Murray"s perspective, he"ll be relieved that Djokovic isn"t standing across the net Sunday.

Federer must now focus on new targets -- or pre-existing ones that had nothing to do with Wimbledon.

"It"s not my only reason why I play tennis, just to be clear, otherwise I"ll go in a freeze box now and come out before Wimbledon next year," he said. "I know Wimbledon is important, but it"s not everything, everything. There are a lot of things that I"d like to achieve besides winning Wimbledon."

One, presumably, is winning a first Olympic singles gold medal in Rio next month, having settled for silver against Murray at London 2012.

This year at Wimbledon, though, Murray or Raonic will be doing the winning on the day it matters most.

Source: http://www.ksat.com/sports/milos-raonic-upsets-roger-federer-to-reach-wimbledon-final

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Roger Federer takes back some of criticism of Bernard Tomic

Australian Open 2016 Roger Federer vs David Goffin

Roger Federer wants to take back some of what he said about fellow tennis player Bernard Tomic a couple of weeks ago but only part of it.

Asked to assess the then 17th-ranked Tomic, Federer suggested that Tomic had missed an opportunity to live up to his potential. The trouble was Federer was under the assumption Tomic was ranked ``liked 50 or 60 and (instead) he was top 20.""

So on Tuesday at the Australian Open Federer tried to set the record straight.

``You know, I"d like to see anybody succeed and anybody make their move,"" he said. ``I thought I was somewhat tough, but I was fair because I said nice things about him. But then I checked his ranking. I didn"t know his ranking was as high as it was, to be quite honest.

``That was my bad. But I still believe it"s a big difference, top 10 for a week or for a year. It"s a lot of dedication, a lot of hard work. There"s a lot of guys who have the potential right now, not just him.""

Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/sports/ci_29434548/roger-federer-takes-back-some-criticism-bernard-tomic

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