Familiar foes Roger Federer and Tomas Berdych are on a collision course for the Australian Open quarterfinals. They will be favored on Monday in their respective fourth-round matchups, relatively surprising ones against Marton Fucsovics and Fabio Fognini.
(25) Fabio Fognini vs. (19) Tomas Berdych
Berdych and Fognini will be squaring off for the fifth time in their careers and for the first time in three years when they battle for a place in the Australian Open quarterfinals on Monday. The head-to-head series is all tied up at two wins apiece, although their only previous hard-court result is telling: Berdych dominated 7-5, 6-0, 6-0 at the 2011 U.S. Open. These two veterans faced each other twice on clay thereafter, with Fognini cruising 6-4, 6-2 at the 2013 Monte-Carlo Masters before Berdych prevailed 6-3, 3-6, 7-6(2) two seasons later in Rome.
General consensus was that this portion of the bracket would produce a showdown between Juan Martin Del Potro and David Goffin. Not so fast. Berdych, who was coming off four-set victories over Alex de Minaur and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, crushed Del Potro 6-3, 6-3, 6-2 on Saturday night. Goffin fell to Julien Benneteau, whom Fognini outlasted 3-6, 6-2, 6-1, 4-6, 6-3 during third-round action. This is an especially sudden and much-needed success for Berdych, who plunged way outside the top 10 in 2017 and began this season with a Doha first-round loss to Jan-Lennard Struff. But this is a clearly resurgent Czech, and on a relatively fast hard court he should have an edge against Fognini.
Pick: Berdych in 4
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Marton Fucsovics vs. (2) Roger Federer
There is still a long way to go, but so far this fortnight Federer Rafael Nadal are looking like they have interest in staging a second consecutive Australian Open final between the two all-time greats. Both sailed into the fourth round with 12 consecutive sets won–Federer doing so at the expense of Aljaz Bedene, Jan-Lennard Struff, and Richard Gasquet. Although Stuff and Gasquet accounted themselves particularly well, neither one brought nearly enough to seriously compete with Federer’s current form.
Up next for the second-ranked Swiss on Monday is a first-ever meeting with Fucsovics. The 25-year-old Hungarian may have been unknown to many in the tennis world prior to this tournament, but not to Federer. They actually trained together for a week in Switzerland a few offseasons ago. Aside from being a great experience, that may actually be bad news for Fucsovics–after all, he will bring no secrets to the table like her perhaps did against Sam Querrey in the second round. The world No. 80, who upset Querrey 6-4, 7-6(6), 4-6, also has wins over Radu Albot (7-5 in the fourth set) and Nicolas Kicker (6-3, 6-3, 6-2). It is safe to say that, like Fucsovic’s training session with Federer, this will be nothing more than a valuable learning experience for a player who had never won a Grand Slam main-draw match prior to this fortnight.
Pick: Federer in 3 losing 11-14 games
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