Roger Federer and Juan Martin Del Potro are one round away from a second straight showdown in the Basel final. They are first going up against Vasek Pospisil and Edouard Roger-Vasselin, respectively, on Saturday.
(3) Roger Federer vs. Vasek Pospisil
Federer and Pospisil will be going head-to-head for the second time in their careers when they collide in the semifinals of the Swiss Indoors Basel on Saturday. Their only previous meeting came two years ago on the hard courts of Montreal, where Federer prevailed 7-5, 6-3. Pospisil, of course, is a much different player now at 23 years old. The Canadian owns 17 ATP-level match victories this season and he will surpass his career-high ranking of No. 39 in the world on Monday. So far this week he has dismissed Robin Haase, Ivo Karlovic, and Ivan Dodig all in straight sets.
A five-time champion of this event, Federer is showing signs of regaining his form in front of Swiss fans. The world No. 6 booked his spot in the last four with scalps of Adrian Mannarino, Denis Istomin, and Grigor Dimitrov. Still, Federer is just 39-13 for his 2013 campaign and he has not yet mathematically clinched a spot in the World Tour Finals. Federer generally heats up as tournaments progress, and his straight-setter against Dimitrov exceeded the expectations of many after his scare against Istomin.Pospisil will make this competitive, but he is not quite ready for an upset of Federer on the 17-time slam champion’s home turf.
Pick: Federer in 2 with at least 1 tiebreaker
[polldaddy poll=7508315]
(1) Juan Martin Del Potro vs. Edouard Roger-Vasselin
Del Potro and Roger-Vasselin will be doing battle for the third time in their careers on Saturday. They split their two previous encounters; Roger-Vasselin scored a 6-4, 6-4 upset at the 2009 Tokyo event before Del Potro won a French Open showdown 6-7(5), 7-6(3), 6-4, 6-4 last spring. The fifth-ranked Argentine is completely on fire at the moment, with a title in Tokyo and a runner-up finish in Shanghai already this month. Del Potro is 46-14 for the year thanks to straight-set routs this week of Henri Laaksonen, Marcos Baghdatis, and Paul-Henri Mathieu.
Roger-Vasselin is 23-24 for the season following wins over Stanislas Wawrinka, Tobias Kamke, and Daniel Brands. The 65th-ranked Frenchman is continuing a solid stretch in which he qualified for the Tokyo main draw and reached the second round before posting a quarterfinal result in Moscow. The bad news for Roger-Vasselin is that Del Potro has been nearly untouchable this week. Last year’s Basel champion has been broken only once (none in his last two matches) and against Mathieu he dropped a mere six points in 10 service games.
Pick: Del Potro in 2 losing 7 games or fewer
[polldaddy poll=7507455]
I came here to find out what happened and was surprised to see that Pospisil made quite a match out of it.
I will get to see it later this afternoon. It seems like Pospi can’t hang in there in these close matches.
good experiences for Pistol. He will have a huge 2014, when he will presumably start winning close matches.
NNY: He made a pretty good fist of it bearing in mind who he was playing and made it far more competitive than Baby Fed managed to last night.
He is work in progress still. Most of his career has been spent playing Futures and Challengers. He only been playing the ATP circuit on a regular basis for a couple of years. Give him a bit more time.
He gave Federer more than a few frights.
ed,
Thanks for the info on the match. I can’t wait to see it this afternoon. Now this is what I was hoping Baby Fed would do in his match with Fed.
I guess Pospi needs to learn how to win the close ones. I do think he’s got a bright future if he can keep on working at it.
I still don’t think Fed is playing all that great from what I have seen. I do think he’s very motivated in Basel and with qualifying for London at stake.
I finally got to see this match. That was some ugly stuff from Fed as he was serving for the second set and the match. He made about three errors in a row and was broken. Popsi took advantage and won the tb.
I think Fed does seem more comfortable on indoor hard courts, but he still has these lapses that can be costly. I thought that Popsi played better in the second and third sets, but two things stood out in the post match stats – five double faults for Popsi and sometimes at crucial times and also less than 50% of first serves in. That won’t get it done.
Saw parts of both matches. Congrats to Pop. Now we know how much promise he shows. And can we say again, Fed should thank the draw riggers for making the final this time. A tougher draw and he likely would not have.