Roger Federer has given his thoughts on the shock results of the Australian Open so far, believing that the current set of affairs at the 2017 Australian Open is good for tennis.
The seventeen time grand slam title winner said “I guess it’s good for tennis that a lot of guys believe strongly now that the top guys are beatable, are vulnerable, especially on a faster court.” His statements refer to the results that have seen top and second seeds Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic suffer defeats to players outside the Top 50 and Top 100 in Mischa Zverev and Denis Istomin respectively.
In addition to the top seeds going out early, other shocks have seen Marin Cilic taken to five in the first round before being beaten in the second by Dan Evans, with David Goffin and Kei Nishikori surviving tough five set matches against relatively unheralded opponents in Andrey Kuznetsov and Reilly Opelka.
“I felt like if Rafa and myself can be healthy, yes, you can expect that (they would be in the quarter-finals). That Novak and Andy are not, that is a big surprise,”
“I never thought that Mischa Zverev and Denis Istomin would beat those two big guys”
Federer looks in good form, having taken down Tomas Berdych and Kei Nishikori in rounds three and four, losing just two sets in the process.
With a quarter-final against Mischa Zverev on the horizon rather than top seed Andy Murray as had been seeded, Federer will fancy his chances of reaching the semi-finals of the Australian Open yet again.
