{"id":733,"date":"2007-11-17T00:31:06","date_gmt":"2007-11-17T08:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/?p=733"},"modified":"2007-11-17T00:31:06","modified_gmt":"2007-11-17T08:31:06","slug":"federer-runs-over-roddick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/federer-runs-over-roddick\/","title":{"rendered":"Federer Runs Over Roddick"},"content":{"rendered":"

Join us for the Tennis Masters Cup final! We\u2019ll be blogging live this Sunday, November 18th, at 9 am (PT)\/12 pm (ET).<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n

What to do when a match fixer approaches you and how Roger Federer made it to the semis in Shanghai.<\/b><\/p>\n

Call 1-800-FIX-MATCH<\/b><\/p>\n

After Novak Djokovic<\/b> lost his third match at the Tennis Masters Cup on Thursday, someone in the post-match media session asked him this question:<\/p>\n

Q. Let’s say someone approaches you and asks you to lose a match. \u2026what do you think you should do at that moment? Go and say to someone that someone approached you? Would you be afraid to do that because maybe he’s a criminal and he could do some damage to you, to your family?<\/i><\/p>\n

Djoko was noncommittal in his answer but the question does explain why players never called up the ATP and said: \u201cHey, this guy just walked up to me and offered me $50,000 to throw a match.\u201d The players were rightfully careful about pissing off the wrong person.<\/p>\n

The ATP rules currently require a player to call the ATP or the police but I\u2019m guessing the ATP won\u2019t get very many calls.<\/p>\n

Match of Futility<\/b><\/p>\n

Speaking of gambling, in the first match on Friday evening in Shanghai, Nikolay Davydenko<\/b> and Fernando Gonzalez<\/b> met to see whether Davydenko could knock Gonzo out and therefore pass Roger Federer<\/b> onto the semifinals.<\/p>\n

It was a match of futility. Gonzo injured his right knee and lower back in Paris and that explains why he kept falling down in his loss to Andy Roddick<\/b> two days ago. He didn\u2019t do much better on Friday, falling down a few more times.<\/p>\n

Davydenko couldn\u2019t hit the side of a barn. He had almost twenty unforced errors in the first five games. When you know your opponent is injured, sometimes it takes you out of your game. Davydenko was attacking more than usual because he knew Gonzo was having trouble pushing off on his right knee and it threw his game off.<\/p>\n

Gonzo had trouble warming up and Davydenko broke him right away and won the first set with the break. Once Gonzo got going, though, he fought hard. He lasted until the late in the second set when he started to tire. You could tell because he was going for winners on every shot.<\/p>\n

Davydenko broke him to go up 5-3 and served out the second set to win the match, 6-4, 6-3.<\/p>\n

Practice Match<\/b><\/p>\n

Since Federer was now through to the semifinals and his Friday night opponent, Andy Roddick<\/b>, had already qualified for the semifinals, Roddick\u2019s brother John called this a practice match.<\/p>\n

Didn\u2019t look much like a practice match. It looked pretty the same as they\u2019re previous ten matches, all of which Federer won. Whereas the match between Davydenko and Gonzo was full of missed shots, break points and deuces, this match was as fast as a speeding bullet. It lasted about half as long.<\/p>\n

Federer got 83% of his first serves in and won an incredible 88% of the points on his second serve. Roddick, on the other hand, won only 35% of his second serve points because Federer jumped all over them. This is how bad it was: Roddick didn\u2019t win a point at the net in the first set.<\/p>\n

Roddick must have felt like he was being served up for whatever was ailing Federer. It\u2019s been a rough week for Federer. He lost his first match to Gonzo and beat Davydenko in his second match but looked shaky doing it. He hit 38 unforced errors..<\/p>\n

One look at Roddick, though, and Federer\u2019s game seems to flow off his racket. Federer\u2019s next opponent, Rafael Nadal<\/b>, has no chance if Federer plays this well but he won\u2019t play this well because it\u2019s the power players he eats up. Those annoying energizer bunnies make life much harder for him.<\/p>\n

Roddick will face his own energizer bunny in David Ferrer<\/b>. Ferrer is on fire and Roddick has to be a little discouraged. Federer and Ferrer final anyone?<\/p>\n\n

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Join us for the Tennis Masters Cup final! We\u2019ll be blogging live this Sunday, November 18th, at 9 am (PT)\/12 pm (ET). What to do when a match fixer approaches you and how Roger Federer made it to the semis in Shanghai. Call 1-800-FIX-MATCH After Novak Djokovic lost his third match at the Tennis Masters […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106,20,21,22,33,42,71,72,81,85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-andy-roddick","category-atp-championships","category-atp-players","category-atp-tournaments","category-david-ferrer","category-fernando-gonzalez","category-nikolay-davydenko","category-novak-djokovic","category-rafael-nadal","category-roger-federer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}