FEDERER’S STROLL
Flawless Roger on title march
IT’S getting daft now. How are they going to finally break this old man if they can’t even get a break point on his serve? It is the glaring fact of Roger Federer’s latest saunter at Wimbledon that he has yet to face so much as a single moment of jeopardy on his delivery.
Not one — in three matches, nine sets and more than four hours of court time. Zilch.
Nothing. No break points, no breaking of sweat, no hint of a threat to the old order. He just carries on about his business, a month shy of 37 years old and the winner of the last 29 sets he has played at this place.
Who will stop him? When? No one any time soon by the looks of things. His draw through the first three rounds has been kind, up to and including this win over world No 64 Jan-Lennard Struff, and the tribulations elsewhere have only made the remainder of his route to the final look easier, given Marin Cilic, the third seed, was slated to meet him in the semi-finals but crashed out on Thursday.
He next faces the world No 26, Adrian Mannarino, and his expected quarter-final rival is surmised to be Kevin Anderson, the No 8 seed, or Gael Monfils, before the last four, where the highest-ranked opponent he could meet is John Isner, the world No 10.
They say there are no easy runs in a Slam, and goodness knows the winner of 20 and eight here doesn’t need one, but this looks straightforward.
Struff, for one, never looked like getting in the way.
It has become a theme of Federer’s Championships so far that as well as never showing any vulnerability on his delivery, he also hasn’t wasted any time in snatching breaks.
It took him three games to get one in the first round against Dusan Lajovic, seven against Lukas Lacko and only six here. When it came it was delightful in its execution with a forehand winner for 30-40 and then a blur of a backhand crosscourt to go 4-2 ahead.
Struff was game — serving around 132mph — but he never looked close to getting back into the set, not to mention the match, but that’s just what Federer does.
The second set was closer. Not so much to be any kind of threat — the nearest Struff came was at 4-3 up and 30-30 on Federer’s delivery when he fired long — but he kept pace for ten games before he was broken for 6-5.
The killer touch was a sliced backhand down the line, before a forehand winner in the next game closed the set 7-5.
Struff, who had fought back from two sets down in each of his previous two matches, was hoping for another miracle.
No one had done that in successive rounds here since Adrian Bey in 1964, but this time it was Federer.
Two more breaks for 5-2 for the Swiss in the final set, the latter when Struff doublefaulted and Federer quite appropriately held his serve to love, closing with an ace.
A machine, really.