Federer Still Can’t Win In Monte Carlo; Nadal, Djokovic Move Closer To Saturday SF
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After four days of relatively in-form results, things were turned upside down a little today in the Monte Carlo third round as the top two Swiss players and last year’s finalists Stan Wawrinka and Roger Federer were both sent home consecutively in straight sets on center court.
It’s hard to say which was the bigger surprise because, Wawrinka, who won this title a year ago, was absolutely destroyed by Grigor Dimitrov 6-1, 6-2 in under an hour. That scoreline was a shock!
Then Federer fell to Gael Monfils 6-4, 7-6(5) as the Frenchman won the last four points in breaker from 5-3 down.
Stan was just flat and lifeless as a pancake. Roger? Well, he wasn’t on song either.
“There are many things I could have done better,” Federer said. “I could have served better. I could have mixed it up a bit better. Also I didn’t play my slice backhand well enough. There are some things I did a little bit better and some other things I didn’t do well. Anyway, I never felt comfortable during the whole match… I only have to accept what went wrong and go from there.”
The good news for Stan, if there is any, is that he doesn’t have another title to defend for the rest of the year, and he’s already ranked No. 9 so it looks like he’ll hover around the Top 15 for a while despite losing Australian Open and Monte Carlo title points.
For Federer, I guess this is why he added events like Istanbul so he can better adjust to the clay. Monfils has played him very tough in the past, but that’s probably a match Federer should have won given he was up a break in the first and had the lead in the second set breaker. But maybe that’s just the old age?
“It’s the very beginning of the clay court season,” said Federer. “It’s going to take me some time to feel 100 per cent comfortable… Not many guys are perfect this week. But it was a good week for me anyways to come here and practice with the best, play a couple of matches. At least gives me.
“I think the only thing I need to do is go out on the court and practise,” he said. “I need to play many hours and see what works best. We will analyse the practice I had on clay and those matches with Seve (Luthi) and (Stefan) Edberg. We’ll try to see what the problems are. I think the important thing is to play well in practice and to play many sets. I’ll be able to see what works and what doesn’t work.”
Roger has now played Monte Carlo 12 times, finishing runner-up on four occasions. I wonder, is that the most he’s played a single event without winning?
After the upsets, Rafael Nadal had to be feeling even more nerves as the 8-time champ came out to face the awfully dangerous John Isner. Nadal survived a tense first set breaker recovering from a mini-break down. But then let slip a 0-40 advantage late in the second on Isner’s serve only to get broken and drop the set.
Isner was bombing the serve and either he or Rafa (via a dropshot) would end up at the net nearly every point – smart play by Isner, I thought.
As we heading into a decider, Rafa has talked about confidence issues, and here he was playing a big serving go-for-broke guy in a final set. But unlike his match against Milos Raonic at Indian Wells, he came up aces here to win 7-6 4-6, 6-3. So good victory for Nadal with a rematch with Ferrer next.
“My mentality in the third [set was] very positive,” said Nadal. “The game, the level of tennis, [it] improved a little bit in the third than in the previous two sets. That’s very important for me. [I’m] very happy to be in quarter-finals. [It’s a] very important result for me.”
[It’s] a challenge for me to find again the positive feelings, the confidence, the feeling that I am strong again. Matches like today, [the] third set today, helps to improve, helps to arrive to that place that I want to be.”
Novak Djokovic ended the stadium day blasting Andreas Haider-Maurer 6-4, 6-0 to run his Masters streak to 18. Cilic is next for Novak.
“I’ve played quite a lot of matches this year, so I don’t think I’m missing the competitive rhythm on the court; I actually feel confident,” said Djokovic. “I’ve played and won a lot of matches this year, fortunately.
“I have Marin Cilic [next], who is a Grand Slam winner, who is playing the tennis of his life,” he said. “I look forward to that challenge. Obviously now it’s going to get tougher.”
On the second court, Milos Raonic took care of Tommy Robredo in three. He’ll get Tomas Berdych, a winner over Roberto Bautista Agut.
In a mild upset to me, Cilic ousted JW Tsonga, and then Ferrer took down Gilles Simon in three.
So a decent quarterfinal line-up is set for Friday, with all dirt roads leading to the match we want to see Saturday between Nadal and Djokovic which I think will happen.
In the other semi I’ll still take Berdych to beat Raonic and Monfils has the momentum so I’ll go win him over Grigor tomorrow in a tight one.
FRIDAY MONTE CARLO SCHEDULE
COURT CENTRAL start 10:30 am
[6] T. Berdych (CZE) vs [4] M. Raonic (CAN)
Not Before 11:30 am
[9] G. Dimitrov (BUL) vs [14] [WC] G. Monfils (FRA)
[1] N. Djokovic (SRB) vs [8] M. Cilic (CRO)
[3] R. Nadal (ESP) vs [5] D. Ferrer (ESP)
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