The Miami Open was already without Rafael Nadal and Juan Martin Del Potro before it started. On Saturday it lost Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka, and Alexander Zverev, among others. Roger Federer almost joined them on the sideline.
But “almost” beating Federer is a lot different from actually doing it, and Radu Albert learned that the hard way as second-round action at the season’s first Masters 1000 event got underway. The 37-year-old Swiss just barely overcame slow start to defeat a red-hot Albot 4-6, 7-5, 6-3.
“Margins are slim,” Federer noted. “Then you’re down. When you’re down, you got to play differently. At the end it’s just about finding a way. These are the matches that are so key during the year for any player, is when you’re not sometimes playing your best, when you’re in search mode, that you find it somehow, you squeeze through, play better than the next round. It’s a different opponent, different conditions, different everything. Now you can look back and think maybe having played as much as I did in the first [match] actually maybe helped me.”
Zverev also played a lot in his first match–and did not survive it. Miami’s No. 2 seed started well enough on Saturday night but ended up falling to a soon-to-be-retired David Ferrer 2-6, 7-5, 6-3 after two hours and 22 minutes.
Other men’s seeds to exit were Stan Wawrinka, Marin Cilic, Karen Khachanov, Steve Johnson, and Diego Schwartzman. Perhaps Saturday’s most bizarre match was Schwartzman’s 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 loss to Reilly Opelka. Five service breaks occurred in the first set lone–an unheard of number for any contest involving Opelka. The 21-year-old American did not strike a single ace in opener…and still won it! This match was also briefly suspended due to the sun’s glare off one side of the main stadium.
Serena, who dealt with sun problems of her own in her second-round victory, abruptly withdrew on Sunday due to a left-knee issue.
Fed dodged a bullet….that’s for sure, but as usual….he “found a way”!!!
Roger Federer it’s a true tennis player, the best of all times and he do his job with passion and effort. He never fake an injury, he never left his fans waiting. I admire him and follow him since 1997 . God Bless Him
Albot easily could have won this match and Fed was lucky to advance. He showed poor shot selection, imo, especially on the 2nd serve return. He kept trying to come over it and made countless UE on break point or 15-30 type scores. Far better to slice it back into play and make Albot hit a few shots.
Albot obviously doesn’t have a huge serve (or any huge shot) at 5’9”. Sometimes I think Fed thinks he ‘should’ be able to drive such a serve back, even when it’s not working for him. he can be very stubborn that way, and it nearly cost him in this match with his huge number of often dumb errors.
That was the weakest return I ever saw from Fed. Got me annoyed, almost wanted him to lose. Played even poorer than in a simple warm up match. I don’t have any explanation for those simple UEs. It’s not about age. Maybe he’s tired of tennis…
Please, he has to play B2B2B tournaments, give him a break! He’s still winning his match right? He’s a bit tired physically I believe.
You watch Djoko, he’s playing worse tennis than Fed imo, and he’s younger, and had played only IW – two singles and a few doubles matches – before coming to Miami and he looks like he’s so lacking in energy.
I won’t be surprised that one of the young guns will win the title here at Miami – maybe Tsitsipas, or Medvedev, or even Coric, Kyrgios, Shapo or FAA!
Both Fed and Djoko look vulnerable, Anderson not that convincing either; same with Isner; that’s about all that’s left of the TOP ten, excluding Tsitsipas of the young gen.
There’re still Agut, Goffin and Dimi but I’m not sure they’re good enough to win here.
I think it is about age. What happens as you age is that you have more bad days. Fed said in his post match presser that he just wasn’t having a good day. Maybe his mental focus just wasn’t there. But he lived to fight another day. It’s what the top guys do. I expect Djokovic to keep looking better. He hasn’t had any match play to speak of since AO and half his mind may be on clay already – he wants that 2nd RG big-time. Fed, I don’t know about this week. But maybe Lucky’s right and one of the young guns comes through. We’re seeing more and more of them, aren’t we?
Djoko had enough matches -singles and doubles at IW – before coming to Miami. I doubt he’s thinking about clay when he has chances to score many points here at Miami and winning another Masters.. I’m sure he wants to stay ahead of Rafa and everyone else to remain as no.1. If he gets another YE no.1, that means he’s doing even better than Fed! All he has to do is to win more slams, not necessarily the FO.
No doubt that you’re going to have more bad days as you get older. It wasn’t the execution I find fault in so much as the decision-making.It was obvious that the drive return wasn’t working and was handing Albot a lot of free points. Why not change and start blocking it back?
I notice that Rafa fans also say similar things about him when he refuses to move up on the ROS. In Nadal’s case I think it may be part of his OCD. But in Fed’s case I think it’s a kind of stubbornness and maybe arrogance when playing a much lower ranked player that he thinks he ‘should’ beat.
No. standing way back on return is something relatively new in Nadal’s game (2017? I’d have to look at an AO match) and he does move up at times, but I haven’t seen him do it for a whole match for a long time. But his return stats are among the best in the biz, so I think he knows what he’s doing.
Fed did say he was having an off day at the office – that might have included mentally. Maybe he didn’t take his opponent all that seriously for a long while.
I think Rafa stands way back to return serve mainly on clay, as he prefers to wait for the ball to bounce up high enough for him to hit his topspin FH as best as possible. And, it’s only Rafa who’s capable of doing that on clay with success, because he’s quick enough to cover the court with his unbelievable sliding on clay, and his power to hit with depth even from so far back.
On grass, Rafa stands close to the baseline and returns serve from there; standing way back to return serve on the HCs is/was relatively new, starting from USO2017.
I notice that many players are following suit and are adjusting their return positions behind the baseline, moving back to return big serves especially. It’s not a bad idea, giving yourself more time to read the serve better but you have to be quick enough to move up to the court or to move from side to side after that; not many players have that ability. Murray is one who’s so quick that once he read the serve, he would move forward to return it.
On clay, Rafa is the best returner of serves, you can’t question his return position when he’s having so much success on the surface. He does adjust his return positions on different surfaces. I do notice too that Djoko is now stepping back a bit more to return big booming serves too, they’re all learning from each other.
When you’ve played as many matches as those two, a certain complacency on tactics against ‘lesser’ players is probably hard to avoid .
Ok. I liked this Fed vs Krajinovic much more. He almost made Albot feel like a hero.
An interesting little article on how Fed admits he forgot the game plan against Albot.
https://www.tennisworldusa.org/tennis/news/Roger_Federer/68592/roger-federer-i-forgot-what-my-coach-told-me-about-tactics-vs-radu-albot-/