Story ProgressBack to home
Aus Open: Federer cruises into quarters
Swiss top seed Roger Federer recovered from his major scare in the previous round to cruise into the quarter-finals of the Australian Open.
- Agence France-Presse
- Updated: January 21, 2008 04:33 PM IST
Read Time:2 min
Melbourne:
The 12-time Grand Slam champion overcame the Czech 13th seed, 6-4, 7-6 (9/7), 6-3 in one hour 59 minutes and will play American 12th seed James Blake in the last eight.
Federer was backing up after he was taken to five gripping sets by Serbian Janko Tipsarevic over almost four-and-a-half hours in the third round.
But any concerns over his physical state disappeared despite being behind in the second set tiebreaker against Berdych.
"I'm quite pleased with the result pulling up from a tough match against Tipsarevic who played a fantastic match," Federer said.
"Tomas has been playing well and he's always a dangerous guy on any surface and it's unfortunate for him, but I'm very happy and hope to keep going."
Berdych had two set points in the second set tiebreaker but failed to cash in.
"He was playing better than me to be honest in the second set, he got the early lead, he played well in the tiebreak and I didn't make the serves I needed to and in the end he made a wrong shot selection," added Federer.
Federer said he ate dinner at 1 a m and had a massage after his marathon match with Tipsarevic on Saturday which almost tipped him out of the tournament.
Berdych, who beat Federer at the 2004 Athens Olympics, made too many costly forehand errors to keep the pressure on the top seed.
Swiss top seed Roger Federer recovered from his major scare in the previous round to cruise into the quarter-finals of the Australian Open with a straight sets victory over Tomas Berdych on Monday.The 12-time Grand Slam champion overcame the Czech 13th seed, 6-4, 7-6 (9/7), 6-3 in one hour 59 minutes and will play American 12th seed James Blake in the last eight.
Federer was backing up after he was taken to five gripping sets by Serbian Janko Tipsarevic over almost four-and-a-half hours in the third round.
But any concerns over his physical state disappeared despite being behind in the second set tiebreaker against Berdych.
"I'm quite pleased with the result pulling up from a tough match against Tipsarevic who played a fantastic match," Federer said.
"Tomas has been playing well and he's always a dangerous guy on any surface and it's unfortunate for him, but I'm very happy and hope to keep going."
Berdych had two set points in the second set tiebreaker but failed to cash in.
"He was playing better than me to be honest in the second set, he got the early lead, he played well in the tiebreak and I didn't make the serves I needed to and in the end he made a wrong shot selection," added Federer.
Federer said he ate dinner at 1 a m and had a massage after his marathon match with Tipsarevic on Saturday which almost tipped him out of the tournament.
Berdych, who beat Federer at the 2004 Athens Olympics, made too many costly forehand errors to keep the pressure on the top seed.
Topics mentioned in this article
Tennis Roger Federer
Get the Latest IPL 2024 Updates, check out IPL 2024 schedules and IPL points table at NDTV Sports.Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for more sports updates. You can also download the NDTV Cricket app for Android or iOS.