Tommy Haas started the first set against Roger Federer with his usual tactic at this year’s Wimbledon; serve & volleying on almost all first and second serves.

But even in the first game it was evident (to me at least) that this will not work against Federer.

Federer was hitting returns early and cleanly and putting them low to Tommy’s feet. Tommy held his service games thanks to first serves which he nicely varied between forehand and backhand sides of Federer.

Haas was too emotional on a couple of missed shots and that’s not a good sign. Being so tense prevents a player from playing in the zone and that’s what’s needed to win a semifinal match in a Grand Slam…

Luckily for Haas, Federer lost his feel for a few games and made a few unforced errors that allowed Haas to win his service games. Very high first serve percentage helped too.

Tommy served very well throughout the first set even on his second serves. He forced the serves, played very aggressively and prevented Federer from getting into the return rhythm. Perhaps Tommy felt the power and control of Federer’s returns from the first two games and decided to up the risks a little bit.

Not much to say about Federer’s service games – he won them easily with a mix of first serves, serve & volleys and winning most of the baseline rallies.

In the first set tie-break Roger missed his chance on the first point but Tommy eventually made two unforced errors and that was it. Roger played without any unforced errors in the tie-break and that’s the small difference that decided the first set.

Haas by the way won only 6 out 15 points at the net, made 10 unforced errors (compared to 5 from Roger) and it was really only the first serve that kept him alive until the tie-break…

The commentator on German DSF tv shared an unbelievable statistic from Roger Federer; in Grand Slam matches, he is 117:0 against players ranked lower than top 5! Not a good number for Tommy Haas…

But Tommy served well – around 70% first serves in and so did Roger – over 75% first serves in and there were no break points AT ALL in the match even up to 5:4 in the second set. That’s when Roger had his first break point after returning very consistently in that game and Tommy missing a couple of shots.

Tommy saved the break point with a good serve and managed to hold. But that didn’t happen at 6:5. After some fantastic baseline rallies – where Tommy played too many shots to Roger’s forehand – Federer outplayed Tommy and went ahead with 2 sets to love.

Both held serve until 4:3 in the third set when there was a long game on Tommy’s serve. Federer decided to play high percentage tennis and didn’t force much even with his forehand. Tommy just couldn’t keep it up and was broken for the second time.

The final service game lasted maybe 90 seconds and Federer was in his seventh consecutive Wimbledon final.

The one shot that I noticed in this match and also in previous matches was the backhand slice LOB. Federer saved himself 4 or 5 times in this semifinal match when he was in a totally defensive position and still managed to outplay Haas with this shot.

If you can find an example of Federer’s backhand slice lob on Youtube, please let me know or just embed it in the comment. Thanks!

Related posts:


• Roger Federer’s Biggest Test So Far At The French Open 2009
• Roger Federer Keeps His Hopes Alive
• Roger Federer – Andy Murray Australian Open 2010 Final Analysis
• The Epic Story Of The Roger Federer – Andy Roddick Wimbledon 2009 Final
• Vera Zvonareva – Sania Mirza Match Analysis From PTT Pattaya 2009

This entry was posted on Friday, July 3rd, 2009 at 9:39 am and is filed under Roger Federer, Wimbledon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.