Tennis Atlantic

Federer Will Face Cuevas in Inaugural Istanbul Open Final

Ahmet Fevzi Guclu for Tennis Atlantic

On semifinal Saturday of the Istanbul Open, Roger Federer had to fight hard yet again, to be the first finalist of the day. Diego Schwartzman broke twice Federer in a set he moved very well in and Federer was again terrible at returning and limiting his amount of unforced errors. The world number 2 struggled get his clay game back in Istanbul, and there were also many shanks from the Swiss. During the second, Federer served in high level, and raised the pressure on DSS’s service games, which resulted in breaking him twice. Federer recovered from losing the first set 2-6, to recycle that score and force a third with a 6-2 second set.

The third set featured beautiful tennis, with DSS painting the lines with wonderful point construction, and hard work. The young guns deep hitting was an effective tactic against Federer but Federer got break point chances in 3 service games of the Argentine. DSS’s awful net play today, and considerable amount of random errors in crucial times cost him the match, as Federer finaly broke at 6-5, and won the match in the third. This will be the 4th ATP tour final for the Swiss this year. Also it was a positive week for Schwartzman, and he got a standing ovation from the crowd, after his legendary performance today, with the chants of “Diego” even though they were rooting mainly for Federer the whole match.

[1] R. Federer (SUI) d [8] D. Schwartzman (ARG) 26 62 75

The second semi final of the day, was disappointment, for the crowd, who expected much better performance from Grigor Dimitrov. Pablo Cuevas, was solid again, playing an aggressive match this time, while Bulgarian was the one who was hanging on by his fingernails. The world no:11 was not playing his high level of tennis today and got broken five times by Cuevas in a match lasted barely more than a hour, which should be worrying for Dimitrov. Cuevas was the better side, and has the better clay game between the two. After watching their Grisha’s unexpectedly abysmal performance, many Bulgarians left the stadium with much frustration and sadness. Cuevas, made his second final this year, after the win in Sao Paolo, and continued to play a game which is suited nicely to clay.

[3] P. Cuevas (URU) d [2] G. Dimitrov (BUL) 62 64

Albot/Lajovic beat Guccione/Sa 6-4 7-6(5) to setup a doubles final against Lindstedt/Melzer the top seeded team.

Tomorrow’s final should be comfortable win for Federer, if he raises his level, even a bit. The Swiss is far superior player to Cuevas in every aspect of the game. They have never played before, which is interesting. If 1st seed keeps his bad form, and doesn’t bring his A game though, it may turn to a bit tricky meeting especially on clay against the Uruguayan. Still I’d go with two close sets, like 7-6 7-5 for Federer tomorrow. The final match of the inaugural ATP Istanbul Open, starts at 5 pm local time.