Federer defeats Ungur in 4 sets to make Round 3 in Paris

Another day, another record, which almost seems to happen in every match Federer plays in these days. After equaling Connors slam wins record on Monday, Roger has now broken it with 234 grand slam match wins. GOAT.

Just like his 1st round match against Kamke there’s little to analyse. All I can really say is it was an ok performance and enough to get the job done.

Unfortunately I missed the first set but watched from the start of the second and when I tuned in Roger was playing pretty well. After checking my twitter timeline it was obvious Roger played a solid first set, breaking when he needed to and taking it 6-3.

The second set was really just Roger being very dominant on serve and he took that one 6-2, after seeing that I immediately thought the match would be over in straight sets but as we’ve somewhat become accustomed to Roger suffered a mid match wobble in the third.

Ungur, who beat Nalbandian in the first round, (so he’s clearly not a total mug), was playing some good stuff and Roger looked like he had switched off, he was still serving well enough but it almost looked as if his mind was elsewhere.

He did well to save 2 break points at 4-5 and when the set went into a tie break I was certain Roger would move up a gear and take it with ease. It did look that way when he held two match points at 6-4 but Ungur reeled off 4 straight points to take the breaker.

At the time I was kinda disappointed Roger lost the set but in hindsight Ungur was playing really well and deserved to take the set. He probably caught Roger off guard a little bit, after all they’ve never played and the Romanian has failed to qualify for a slam on 13 previous occasions.

Ungurs success however was short lived and after Roger fended off some more break points at the start of the 4th he went onto break and see out the match without any further trouble.

I reached the tie-breaker and instead of being aggressive, I let him show me what he could do,” said Federer. “He played two beautiful shots, and then I started not playing very well.

After watching that interview I thought Roger came across pretty downbeat, maybe he’s just sick of answering dumbass questions all the time but I also thought on court he looked a little unmotivated.

As far as opinion goes on twitter there seems to be two schools of thought; one being that he’s just warming up and saving his best for the later rounds and the other being that he is looking a little dejected and maybe all is not well in the Federer camp. I did say prior to the tournament I didn’t have good vibes about the French but I’m just going to wait and see how the tournament pans out before I start drawing any conclusions.

Predictions vs. Mahut

As usual the draw didn’t follow the script and Roger isn’t facing Andy Roddick in the 3rd round, instead he’s facing Frenchman Nicolas Mahut for the 4th time in their careers.

Roger leads the H2H 3-0 so I think this should be another relatively easy match, he beat him convincingly in Rotterdam earlier this year 6-4 6-4 and I expect something similar on Friday.

Mahut is really regarded as a grass court player as he often employs serve and volley tactics so clay really shouldn’t overly suit his game, I figure he might pose some problems early doors but I see Roger getting it done in straight sets.

He’ll have to make a few good passing shots but as long as he serves well I opt for a 6-3 6-2 6-1 victory.