Rome 2013 SF: Federer v. Paire

[Johnsteinbeck]

Paire seems to be returning from Naples. Fed held with consecutive points from 0-30. Paire can't be too happy about that, there's only so many chances (2) left to break back.

gotta leave it to Benoit, though, he's got some serious talent.

 

[Front242]

Well those two shots were nice from Paire. If he can do that more often he can beat Federer and a lot of other guys in the top 10 and maybe eek out some wins against the other members of the top 4.

Agreed but he needs to do it a lot more often and preferably towards the end of the service game. Two great shots though. 8-1 in favour of Paire in terms of aces too.

 

[herios]

Seeing Benoit for the first time today and I like him. Nice addition to the men's tennis higher ranked players, which IMO is the top 40-50. As he is work in progress, it will be interesting to ee where his career will bring him. As of Monday he will jump to 26.

 

[tenisplayrla08]

Fed is back in the final of Rome. I can't believe it's been 7 years since he's been to the final here. Crazy. Paire showed his brilliance. But he couldn't sustain it and Fed is too good at adding pressure and hitting the right shots to test inconsistent players. Nice performance by him tonight.

 

[Johnsteinbeck]

alright, so we really got ourselves another Fedal final. nice enough (although it won't be pretty or interesting, tbh).

Fed played stable enough when it mattered - but barely so, it was mostly Benoit throwing it away. all in all, ooking at the stats, you got to shudder; the match didn't even look *that* bad. but Fed actually had three dfs against one ace, and quite some more UEs than winners. oh well, a W's a W.

i already wanted to say yesterday that Rome (of all places) is the first tournament that Fed got to defend his 2013 points. now, he'll actually even Add some points. not bad (not catching Andy, though).

 

[Front242]

alright, so we really got ourselves another Fedal final. nice enough (although it won't be pretty or interesting, tbh).

Fed played stable enough when it mattered - but barely so, it was mostly Benoit throwing it away. all in all, ooking at the stats, you got to shudder; the match didn't even look *that* bad. but Fed actually had three dfs against one ace, and quite some more UEs than winners. oh well, a W's a W.

i already wanted to say yesterday that Rome (of all places) is the first tournament that Fed got to defend his 2013 points. now, he'll actually even Add some points. not bad (not catching Andy, though).

Yeah certainly wasn't expecting him to gain points here either. Then again Djokovic is gone as is Murray so the path was notably easier. Would like to see Fed v Murray on clay actually. Murray played well here in 2011.

 

[justapasserby]

Fedal final... wishful thinking tells me this would be a great opportunity for fed to have a shot at rafa on clay... but we al know what's going to happen tsss

 

[Front242]

I'd rather Fed lost dismally than being up double breaks and failing to serve it out as that's just head wrecking. Was just watching Hamburg 2008 for evidence of that sort of lead being blown. Utterly pathetic. Up 5-1 in set 1 and loses it 7-5 and up 4-1 in set 2 and barely wins it in a tie break. Could do without anything as bad as that. Hopefully he'll play well enough to make it respectable.

 

[Moxie]

Seeing Benoit for the first time today and I like him. Nice addition to the men's tennis higher ranked players, which IMO is the top 40-50. As he is work in progress, it will be interesting to ee where his career will bring him. As of Monday he will jump to 26.

I'm still giving Mastoor credit for pointing out Paire a couple of boards, and about a year, ago. He has been a player on the rise and is reaping some benefit. I only watched a bit of the match in replay, but Benoit did better than expected, and nearly had that first set in the TB.

 

[tented]

Seeing Benoit for the first time today and I like him. Nice addition to the men's tennis higher ranked players, which IMO is the top 40-50. As he is work in progress, it will be interesting to ee where his career will bring him. As of Monday he will jump to 26.

I'm still giving Mastoor credit for pointing out Paire a couple of boards, and about a year, ago. He has been a player on the rise and is reaping some benefit. I only watched a bit of the match in replay, but Benoit did better than expected, and nearly had that first set in the TB.

Somehow I forgot to DVR the match, so I started watching the Tennis Channel's replay. Towards the end of the first set (5-4?), they went to a commercial, only to come back with the "Due to time constraints we're rejoining the match at a later time" message -- AND SKIPPED THE FIRST SET TIEBREAK! I nearly had a McEnroe-level outburst.