peRFect Serving Federer Closes Out Chardy in Indian Wells

An imperious serving display from Roger Federer as he overcame the big-hitting Jeremy Chardy 7-5, 6-4 in 1 hour and 22 minutes to book his spot in the Indian Wells Quarter Finals. The Swiss was able to win all 25 points behind his first serve and dropped just five in total for the match and he is now just one win away from maintaining his Number 1 ranking until the clay swing.

The 5 time BNP Paribas Open champion will face South Korea's Hyeon Chung next in the Quarter Finals after his 6-1 6-3 win over Pablo Cuevas. The two met in January in the Australian Open semi-finals, where Federer led 6-1 5-2 before Chung retired with blisters so it should be interesting now Chung is back to full fitness.

Quick Match Recap

Federer won the toss and elected to receive. In windy conditions, the big-serving Chardy held from deuce for 1-0. Roger then levelled with a love hold and the pair exchanged further holds and the scoreboard ticked along to 3 games all.

In game seven Roger had his first break point thanks to a Chardy double fault but the Frenchman held for 4-3. That was soon five all but in game eleven the Swiss got the breakthrough, after two double faults in the game from Chardy including one on break point. Roger served it out to love, winning 7 points in a row to take it.

Into set two and Chardy started confidently with a love hold. Roger quickly levelled and both players looked dominant on serve with little inroad for the returner. That trend continued until game nine where Roger got lucky with a shanked return to make 30 all and although Chardy saved a break point at 30-40 Fed didn't let him off the hook, hitting a backhand winner to break for 5-4. he then served it out to love to move into the Quarters.

Match Stats

Rally of the Match

Thoughts on the Match

A good win here from Roger against a big hitting confident opponent in the shape of Jeremy Chardy. The Frenchman served at an average of 130mph throughout the match and really went after his groundstrokes which made the scoreline close but he was never in the return games as Roger dropped just five points on serve during the match.  I thought Fed played at a high level throughout and to win 100% behind your first serve in windy conditions is top drawer. Breaking just when he needed to has also been his hallmark against big servers and he as able to do that too, applying just enough pressure in games 11 and 9 in each set to come through.

Chardy deserves plaudits too, Fed said in his interview on the Tennis Channel he can't understand why he doesn't have better results as he has two big weapons and has given Fed a decent game in all five of their meetings now.

Predictions vs. Chung

Next up is Chung who has continued his impressive start to the season after overcoming the blisters his sustained down under. We didn't really see much of him when the two played in Australia as Chung threw in the towel during the second set but Roger obviously had the beating of him there.

However, I imagine this one will be closer as the South Korean probably like these conditions where his precise groundstrokes and good movement suit the surface. I've watched highlights of him against Berdych and Tomas just couldn't find a way through him from the back of the court. The Czech doesn't have the variety of the Swiss though so Fed is obviously the favourite going in, he'll need to defend his serve well which will be under a bit more pressure and look to manoeuvre Chung around and not get dragged into metronomic baseline play that Chungovic laps up. It's a night session so I'm not sure who it favours, it's slower so perhaps Chung, but it's also flatter which might favour Fed when he steps up the court.