Monday, June 01, 2015

Roger Federer gets the better of Monfils to set up all-Swiss quarterfinal at Roland Garros






Roger Federer finally got the better of Gael Monfils Monday in their fourth meeting at Roland Garros.

Second seed Federer, the 2009 champion, knocked out No. 13 seed Monfils 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 carried over from Sunday for a place in his 11th quarter-final at the clay-court major. The match lasted two hours and 17 minutes.

"I wanted to get off to a good start, because you never know how he will be playing," said Federer. "So I felt good. I was calm yesterday. I was calm this morning. So we (Stefan Edberg and I) adopted the right game plan and the right tactical approach. I'm very happy."

Federer has a 16-2 FedEx ATP Head2Head lead against his next opponent, fellow Swiss and eighth seed Stan Wawrinka.

"It [will be] a special match," said Federer. "It is not a traditional match. There aren't too many Swiss players in the draw... It's always special to play each other. There will be a Swiss guy in the semi-final. That's positive. I hope I will reach the semifinal of a tournament. I will pull out all the stops to advance to the next round. If I will not make it, I will be very happy for Stan."

Resuming at one-set all, Federer needed 63 minutes to wrap up the third and fourth sets.

He quickly broke clear of Monfils and came close to taking a 4-1 lead in the third set. Monfils fought back, forcing Federer to save one break point at 4-3. Federer broke in the first game of the fourth set and, at one point, won 10 straight points to take the match away from Monfils.

Federer is now 29-5 on the season, which includes three ATP World Tour titles.

Afterwards, Monfils said, "It was tough because I'm sick. I have not much energy. Yesterday, I thought that maybe we might not play and it would help me a little bit, and finally we did play. I was battling to get a set and actually for me one-set all was perfect.

"I didn't have a great night last night, so it was maybe a mistake. Roger played solid. I think not very decent, but just a solid match. I couldn't challenge him because I was too tired... When you're 100 per cent is it's never easy to beat Roger, so when you're not 100 per cent it is definitely impossible."

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