Federer’s love for Halle continues

Published 06/20/2015, 1:25 PM EDT

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Top seed Roger Federer made way into his tenth Halle final by getting the better of ace machine Ivo Karlovic, after an hour and a half of aggressive grass court tennis. No player could break the Karlovic serve this week and Federer was no exception. It took two tiebreaks and a bit of ‘Federer magic’ for the Swiss to help him notch up his 50th win at this tournament.

It was a perfect exhibition of attack with both players comfortably holding on to their respective serves by great volleys and serves and creating wide angles to hit aces. A tiebreaker looked inevitable and it was Federer who came on top at crucial junctures to take the first set 7-3 in the breaker.
In the second set Federer was running away with his service games, winning them in about 90 seconds. Karlovic had to dig deep to avoid break points on his serves. The Croation was hitting mammoth aces to get himself out of trouble. Ivo smashed 20 aces and 33 winners past Federer. Both players were exceptional on their first serves, each losing only nine points in the entire match. The match saw only one breakpoint, which was perfectly saved by Karlovic.
A Hawkeye overruled call denied Karlovic of a mini break at 3-3 in the second set tie break, turning out to be the deciding moment of the set. The Croatian then missed a volley at the net to hand Federer a chance to serve it out, which the Swiss gladly accepted.
And with a perfect serve down the T, backing up with a solid volley, Federer closed it. 7-6(3) 7-6(4) to the Maestro! Federer now has a chance to better his own record of 14 grass court titles, that includes 7 at Halle.

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Written by:

Sameer Bharti

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Watches tennis, cricket and football. Mostly tennis.
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