Federer's Former Foes

Rafael Nadal and Tomas Berdych met for the second time in their careers tonight, clashing in a first round match at the Cincinnati Masters. What makes this match (where Berdych beat Nadal 6-7,6-2,7-6) so special is an interesting factoid: both players have held winning records against Roger Federer.

Last year, when Federer seemed poised to take an Olympic medal home along with his Australian Open and Wimbledon trophies, a young player from the Czech Republic came out of nowhere and upset Federer with his shotmaking and risk-taking. Tomas Berdych became known as the kid who beat the seemingly invincible world #1, and was one of the few who had beaten him that year. Federer avenged himself in straight sets on poor Berdych earlier this year at the Hamburg Masters, bringing their career record to an even 1-1.

Nadal leads his career meetings with Federer at 2-1, most recently trumping Roger in a 2005 French Open semifinal. His first meeting with Federer was a first-round victory at the 2004 Miami Masters; they had a rematch this year in the final, and Federer barely overcame Nadal in five sets.

In their first match on hard court, Berdych came out on top versus Nadal by using the same strategy he used on Federer: he stayed back and created opportunities to hit groundstroke winners, or approached the net at the right times and volleyed the ball out of reach. His serving was solid and put Nadal on the defensive: Berdych won 83% of his first serves in. Nadal withstood this assault through the first set, ekeing out a tiebreak win. After Berdych broke Nadal twice in the second set and served it out, Nadal broke Berdych as he was serving for the match. Berdych then had to save match points against him and pushed the deciding set to another tiebreaker. This time around, Berdych raced away with the tiebreaker--and the win.

posted by Noelle De Guzman @ 10:43 AM