TENNIS ROLAND GARROS – Gulbis ignored all talk about this match and clearly stated that he had a game plan and felt capable of beating the all-time major winner. For those who might have earlier seen this talk as cockiness and over confidence are now forced to commend the Latvian on his convincing dismissal of Federer in 5 sets 6-7 7-6 6-2 4-6 6-3. Cordell Hackshaw
Interviews, Results, OOP, Draws from the Roland Garros
When the men’s draw came out, many thought that the potential Roger Federer (4) v Ernest Gulbis (18) match up had the makings of an upset. Some doubted that Gulbis, known for his dramatic flare ups on the court, would be “mature” enough to score such a huge upset at this major tournament. However, Gulbis ignored all talk about this match and clearly stated that he had a game plan and felt capable of beating the all-time major winner. For those who might have earlier seen this talk as cockiness and over confidence are now forced to commend the Latvian on his convincing dismissal of Federer in 5 sets 6-7 7-6 6-2 4-6 6-3. Gulbis summed up this win by saying, “[F]or my confidence and just for me as a tennis player, a five set win over Roger Federer, it’s really big…If you see the rankings, you see everything. It’s a big upset. It’s a big win for me.”
Federer’s fans would have noticed that he was off; well off from the start in fact. Throughout much of the match, Federer was playing from the back of the court and Gulbis was the one dictating play. Federer would later state, “[I]t was a tough match and I’m disappointed I lost it…I’m not mad, but I’m not happy, either. Because I missed too many opportunities. I did not play like I wanted to play.” Federer began making careless errors in the opening service game giving Gulbis an easy hold. Gulbis too sensed this general unease about the Federer game today; “Yeah, but he’s also a human being, you know…he’s Roger Federer, but he also gets tight.” Federer up 40-15 in the 5th game, missed an easy overhead to be broken but he broke back to remain on serve 3-3. There were no more breaks of serve and the set was forced into a tiebreaker. Federer was only slightly better there than Gulbis but it was enough to take the 1st set 7-6(5).
Federer missed another easy overhead to be broken in the first game of the 2nd set but broke back immediately. He seemed to have raised the level of game as he began constructing points more effectively on court and broke Gulbis again in the 8th game to serve for it 5-3. Mr. Federer was up 40-0; triple set points in hand and then simply collapsed. Gulbis spoke of this moment later on: “There I was lucky, I have to say. I was really lucky then. In the second set he had a smash and I guess the place, the place where he could…I don’t know, I guess I just didn’t move a lot. I stayed in one place. He smashed right onto me. So, yeah, that was a bit lucky.” Gulbis seized upon this distracted Federer and broke him to stay alive in the set. Federer barely managed to get it to a tiebreaker where he lost it 3 points to 7. Gulbis clearly had the momentum and took that with him into the 3rd set where he simply dominated the 2009 French Open champion.
Within an hour time, Federer moved from having points for a 7-6 6-3 lead to being down 7-6 6-7 2-6. It seemed almost like a doppelgänger was on court pretending to be Federer. He even went for a showboating shot between the leg winner. However, Gulbis was not allowing any trick shots at his expense on his watch. Of all the sets in the match, the 3rd set was the most damning for Federer. Despite getting 80% first serves in, he only won 60% of the points and 20% on his second serve. He committed 12 errors to 10 winners. He had no chances to break the Gulbis’s serve which was in peak performance at this point in the match. Gulbis, on the other hand won 71% of his first serve points and 83% behind his 2nd serve. He had 9 winners but only 2 errors. He was 2/2 on break points. “Ernests was also doing a good job of keeping the pace up on his serve and also trying to play aggressive with his backhand from the baseline,” Federer stated.
In the 4th set, vintage Federer appeared. He was definitely constructing points far better than the previous sets as well as getting deeper more penetrating shots into the court. He would break Gulbis twice to serve for the set 5-2. However, Gulbis took a medical time out at this time for “lower back” issues and went off court for several minutes. He returned rejuvenated. He went on a 8-1 points run breaking Federer and holding serve in the process. Federer looked befuddled and flat during this run. The crowd and viewers suspected poor gamesmanship on the part of the Latvian. Gulbis explained this seemingly ‘unusual phenomenon’, “I don’t like to see it that way. I like to see I went for my shots and I made winners. If you see those two games, I was really aggressive on my return, and I just went for the shots.” Federer eventually closed out the set 6-4 and forced the match to a decisive 5th set.
The 5th set would prove not to be an epic thriller as it was between Andy Murray and Philipp Kohlschreiber earlier on the day for it was “done and dusted” in the opening game when Federer was broken. He never recovered from this blow. Gulbis remained solid on serve winning 93% of his first serve in the set, never facing a break point in the set. Federer’s backhand went wide down match point and with that, Gulbis goes through to the quarterfinal with a 6-7 7-6 6-2 4-6 6-3 victory. Gulbis finally revealed his game plan for the Federer game: “I had more or less the clear game plan, you know. I had to play on his backhand, you know. And from backhand he makes these unforced errors.” Gulbis equals his best ever performance in a major as he made it to the quarterfinals here in Paris back in 2008.
