Having already accomplished his main goal at the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament, Roger Federer capped off the week in style by capturing the title with a 6-2, 6-2 rout of Grigor Dimitrov in Sunday afternoon’s final. Federer dominated from start to finish against an ailing opponent, securing the winner’s trophy after a mere 55 minutes.
“I was expecting it to be tough today,” the top seed commented. “Grigor is a great player and a great athlete and he’s been playing super well in recent months. I thought that this wasn’t going to be the result, but he looked to be struggling a bit and I never looked back. I was able to execute my tennis the way I wanted to. I’m very happy.”
Perhaps Federer should not have been expecting it to be tough. He was already 6-0 lifetime in the head-to-head series against the Bulgarian and he coasted through the first set on Sunday even when Dimitrov appeared to be 100 percent. The underdog started to fade in the first game of the second, at which point Federer was completely off to the races.
The 36-year-old clinched a return trip to the No. 1 ranking by reaching the semifinals, and with a total of 500 points he is now guaranteed to remain No. 1 at least through next month’s Indian Wells Masters. Rafael Nadal, who had been the world’s top-ranked player, is expected to return from a hip injury sustained at the Australian Open later in February on the hard courts of Acapulco.
“It’s definitely one of those weeks I will never forget in my life,” Federer added. “It’s unbelievable to get my 97th title and get back to world No. 1. It’s very special.
“I played a great first match and a great last match. In between it was a battle and nerve-wracking, getting back to world No. 1 and managing my expectations and my nerves as well. I was able to handle the pressure and today I played great from the beginning. I pushed forward and I’m very proud that I could win here in Rotterdam.”
“It was a great week, but I just came up short today,” Dimitrov lamented. “Anything can happen, but all credit to Roger. He deserves to win the tournament and played unbelievable tennis the whole week. He raised the bar. I just want to take the positives from the week. My goal was to come out here and play well with each match, but I just came up short today. You do the best you can and play with whatever you have. I was following my game to the capacity I could and that was the result.”
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