Roger Federer, the top seed, never likes to make things easy on himself does he. Back-to-back three setters against Daniel Gimeno-Traver and Diego Schwartzman finally booked him a spot into the finals against clay court-specialist Pablo Cuevas. Both men went through one seeded player in each of their respective halves to get to the final. So who lifts up the title in the inaugural Istanbul Open? Read the breakdown of the players and see who we think lifts the title.
It’s rare to ever see Roger Federer play in a 250 tournament, but if there’s one thing the Swiss maestro loves more than rest, it’s visiting a new country. With this new tournament in Istanbul, he decided to give this 250 a go. We all knew after a couple of weeks off from Monte Carlo, Federer was going to be fresh, what we didn’t know was how he would fare on the new clay in Turkey. He started off very strong dispatching Jarkko Nieminen in quite simple fashion but his matchups against clay-courters were much more difficult than he imagined.
In these matchups against Gimeno-Traver and Schwartzman, the tennis was more of a chess match as each player tried to figure each out. For Gimeno-Traver his forehand definitely posed the Swiss problems forcing some mistimed errors on the forehand wing from Federer. Also, he had some poorly timed errors on the backhand wing as well. The Swiss has had a very good history against Schwartzman, but on the clay, the story is very much different. The little Argentine has more time to set up for shots forcing Federer to play longer points. You would think that most of those would go in Federer’s direction, but the Argentine won his fair share of points. Having never played Pablo Cuevas before, Federer is going to be in for another chess match, but this one, he might not get out of.
Third-seeded Pablo Cuevas has clay-courter written all over him. Three titles on the red dirt in the last season-plus. Like Federer, he has a one-handed backhand and uses it to create angles while Federer uses it for to hit both angles and power. His forehand is hit with heavy topspin giving him more margin for error, and the Uruguayan likes to deploy the slice a lot.
After defeating Gabashvili in three sets in his first match, Cuevas dominated his next two opponents, Thomaz Bellucci and Grigor Dimitrov. Many Turks and tennis fans were hoping to see the Fed against “Baby Fed” showdown, but Cuevas just dusted him off the court yesterday.
With another “chess match” ensuing tomorrow for Federer, this one is destined to go the distance. The ideal way for Cuevas to breakdown Federer tomorrow is to use his forehand as often as he can to breakdown Federer’s backhand wing. The Swiss should catch on to that pattern though especially it is a tactic often deployed by his fellow “Big Four” rival and friend Rafael Nadal. If Cuevas struggles to breakdown the backhand of Federer, the Uruguayan will be in for a long day tomorrow, but expect him to tactically find a way to keep Federer on his toes for the whole match.
Prediction: Federer in three sets.