Roger Federer’s streak is over. The first early loss in a grand slam since before he became great, 10 years ago. Back in 2010, 23 consecutive grand slam semifinals ended at the hands of Robin Soderling at Roland Garros. In the second round Wednesday, the quarterfinal streak of 36 consecutive appearances ended in an extremely tight match against Sergiy Stakhovsky. The Ukrainian stunned Centre Court, giving the Swiss maestro his earliest exit in a grand slam since Roland Garros in 2003.
Day 2 of the 2013 Championships also marked a bizarre day of slips and falls on court, injuries and upsets. The first set appeared to set the seeds back on course, as the Swiss pulled out a close tiebreak, and play remained on serve into the second set. When Stakhovsky edged out the second set tiebreak, Centre Court began to whisper after gasping when seeing the scoreboard (Sharapova’s upset). However, the level of the match was played very high from start to finish. Stakhovsky capitalized on the first slip from Federer, breaking him and shortly after, taking a two sets to one lead. He would go on to break early in the fourth set, but the Swiss fought back to break for 3-all, leading on into yet another tiebreak. However, it was the Ukrainian who prevailed. Stakhovsky defeated Federer, 6-7 (5) 7-6 (5) 7-5 7-6 (5), in 3 hours.
The match was extremely close throughout. Below are comparative statistics.
Aces: Stakhovsky 17, Federer 16
Double faults: Stakhovsky 2, Federer 1
1st serves in: Stakhovsky 66%, Federer 72%
Fastest serve: Stakhovsky 124mph, Federer 127mph
1st serve points won: Stakhovsky 76%, Federer 80%
2nd serve points won: Stakhovsky 64%, Federer 55%
Average 1st serve speed: Stakhovsky 116mph, Federer 116mph
Average 2nd serve speed: Stakhovsky 98mph, Federer 99mph
Net points: Stakhovsky 61 of 96 (64%), Federer 35 of 54 (65%)
Break points: Stakhovsky 2/7 (29%), Federer 1/8 (13%)
Winners: Stakhovsky 72, Federer 57
Unforced errors: Stakhovsky 17, Federer 13
After the match, Federer addressed the media during his press conference.
“The 24-hour rule applies,” said Federer. “Don’t panic at this point. Go back to work and come back stronger. Usually I do turnarounds pretty good. This is clearly not what I was hoping for here. He was uncomfortable to play against, but I expected serve-and-volley because he often does it. Credit to him for closing it out under enormous pressure. I’m very disappointed I couldn’t find a way to win. I had opportunities, a foot in the door, but I couldn’t do it. I wish [the 36 quarter-finals] were not going to end here but I have no choice other than to accept it and move on. It doesn’t feel like the end of an era for me because I still have plans to play for many more years to come. Some finals haven’t hurt this much. At least having lost I didn’t have to go through a trophy ceremony with this one.”
Highlights.
http://youtu.be/2YEHmGG1azI
Highlights (ESPN YouTube channel).
http://youtu.be/fVRLcoNyvBo
Press conference.
Source: Wimbledon
Watch full coverage of Wimbledon on FF07tv. See Roger Federer’s Wimbledon Nike outfit here.
Download the official Wimbledon app for iOS (iPhone, iPod touch), the new iPad app, or Android.
FedererFan07.com – the #1 Federer site