French Open 2010: Federer seeks comfort in Wimbledon

“World number 1 loses to 5th seed Robin Soderling”- makes for very attractive headline and so it was. With the world number 1 losing his quaterfinal match against the very man he defeated in 3 straight sets last year at the very same tournament and arena in the finals of the French Open 2009 Federer completed his trophy closet. He became the 5th man to win all the major grand slam tournaments and equalling Pete Sampras’s record of winning 14 major grand slam titles.

Federer on grass

However, history did not repeat itself in the quaterfinals as Federer was denied the chance to win the 13th match against Robin Soderling and his 2nd French Open title. After the first set where Federer gave away only 3 service points his serve took a beating as he couldn’t serve well and couldn’t hold his serve at crucial moments. The 5th seed came to the court with vengence, to win over the world number 1. He won the match in four sets 6-3, 3-6, 5-7, 4-6.

In the post match conference Federer looked gloomy as ever. Federer was caught saying that the damp conditions on court favored the 5th seed more than they did for him. These conditions were identical to the ones in Estoril and Rome, earlier this year and Federer lost his matches at both these venues. He was found defending himself saying, “These were serious conditions. If, you serve at 225kmph, 230, you can still hit through the court on serve. I maybe lacking those 5-10 kmph on my serve. But, that’s the way the conditions are. I can’t complain as the conditions were the same for both of us. But I am disappointed to have lost 3 matches in the rain on clay this season; in Estroil, Rome and here again. So, I just couldn’t come up with the plays when I had to.”

Federer also praised his hard hitting play of the 5th seeded Swede and said, “He really played well for almost the entire match. I’m not blaming the conditions but I think they favored him towards the end. I felt like he played great. He was able to hit consistently through the ball, and through the offensive put them close to the lines. That’s impressive.”

With this defeat Federer could well lose his number one spot if Rafa goes on to win the tournament. But, once again lamenting on his loss he said, “I don’t think I played a bad match, so it’s easier to go out this way. I really felt my tennis was good enough to come here and do it again but that wasn’t the case today. You move on, move on to grass and forget it a little bit.”