Roger Federer played his way into the final of the Gerry Weber Open with a contested two-set victory.
Federer won 7:6 (1), 7:5, celebrated his 20th consecutive lawn victory and will fight for his tenth title at the 2.1 million Euro lawn tournament in Halle/Westphalia on final Sunday. Roberto Bautista Agut and Alexander Zverev conqueror Borna Coric will play off their opponents there in the afternoon.
The first in the world rankings had reached the semi-finals with two last fought matches, had fended off two match points against Benoit Paire in the round of 16 and then had to turn a 3:5 deficit against Matthew Ebden in the second round. Surprise man Kudla had benefited from a good draw against Lukas Lacko, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Yuichi Sugita and won his matches in two sets.
Federer took the first service game from the US player, but recklessly gave up his lead. Afterwards, both players had a hard time with the return, in the tiebreak the Swiss then decided several times for the chipped safety variant – with success.
The many last matches – four in Stuttgart, three in Halle – seemed to have emaciated Federer somewhat, however, he himself spoke in the run-up to the encounter of “somewhat heavy legs”. Federer didn’t look as light-footed as usual and surprised again with many slight mistakes. He skipped his frustration after an accidental, indecisive half volley at the ball at the beginning of the second set, which he drove towards the exit of the stadium and received a warning.
However, ball artist Federer once again showed his fighting side. matches even on bad days: It is the real secret of a good tennis player’s success. Federer fended off two breakballs at 1:2, at 3:4 he turned a 0:40 into a game win. At 5-5 he stayed in the game and profited from some mistakes of the world rankings-109th, after that he served the match home.
“Denis remained calm throughout the match, so I had to be patient and fight – and I’m glad I made it,” Federer said afterwards. And on the rage action: “I just wanted to see if I could hit the moon – the ball is still on its way. Sometimes it’s good to let that out. Nobody was hurt.”
The single draw of Halle at a glance