Well, the renewal of the epic rivalry between Roger Federer (GOAT in my mind!) and Rafael Nadal (making his hard court return after serious knee injury) did not quite live up to the hype. Very disappointing, especially for me as a huge Fed fan! In all fairness, Roger was clearly not at 100%. One could tell just in the way he moved that his back was injured. With two of the women withdrawing earlier in the day, Roger just has too much class to not come out and give the fans what they had paid to see, Roger vs. Rafa. Clearly Rafa has recovered and should be a factor in the semifinals and maybe the final, still gotta go with Djokovic and Murray. Nadal over Federer, 6 – 4, 6 -2. Roger is playing a reduced schedule this year, so we will not get to see him as often as we did last year when he carefully structured his schedule in a manner to regain the world #1 ranking and surpass Pete Sampras (his idol) for weeks at number 1. Hope Fed’s back heals up and we can soon see the real Roger Federer we all love and know. Come on Fed, let’s get one more major this year! Tale of the tape…the greatest measure of a match in men’s tennis is success on 2nd serve…Fed just could not get his serve game in gear last night, big indicator of how much his back was bothering him.
Celebrities in the crowd: Gavin Rossdale in Fed’s box, Kevin Spacey and Andre Agassi!
In the earlier quarterfinal match, Thomas Berdych halted Kevin Anderson’s spectacular run at Indian Wells, 6 – 4, 6 -4.
