Western & Southern Open, Cincinnati

Men’s Final: [CR3] Roger Federer (SUI) vs. [CR6] David Ferrer (ESP)

That is how Federer has played against Ferrer. Despite his determined play and dogged persistence, Ferrer has not been able to solve the mystery of Federer.  However, there has been signs that he might be getting closer; in their last encounter, Ferrer took the 2nd set, but he could not sustain his level of play in the third set to gain the victory.

Surely he is getting tired of losing.  After he lost the first set today at 6-3, the belief that he could halt the dominance of Federer took a hit.  However, Ferrer is a fighter and he battled furiously in the second set, catching Federer off guard and winning the set 6-1.

Certainly, he could do it this time, but Ferrer had lost the match the moment he lost the first set.  He failed to take advantage of numerous second serve chances and only capitalized twice on break chances, and both were in the second set.  When you play someone of Federer’s caliber, you have to gobble up your opportunities.  Given the history of 15 straight losses, you have to figure that Ferrer knew this.  Yet, knowing what you need to do and executing it are two different things, and the third set went easily to Federer, 6-2.  Ferrer can only hope he gets another opportunity to play Federer; however, perhaps the spectre of so many losses is too much to overcome, even for someone with as much heart as Ferrer.

SCORE: Federer d. Ferrer, 6-3, 1-6, 6-2