The Hindu : Sport : Baghdatis stretches Roger Federer

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Saturday, Aug 18, 2007
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Sport

Baghdatis stretches Roger Federer

Bhupathi & Murray lose; Paes & Damm in last eight

— PHOTO: AP

TELLING BLOW: David Ferrer, generally seen as a claycourt specialist, took out Andy Roddick in an event the latter has done well at, in the past.

Cincinnati: Roger Federer survived a scare from Marcos Baghdatis on Thursday to move into the quarterfinals of the Western & Southern Financial Group Masters, which has been brutal to seeded players this week.

Federer beat Baghdatis 7-6(5), 7-5, shortly after David Ferrer ousted defending champion Andy Roddick 7-6(4), 6-4.

“It was a struggle out there for both of us,” Federer said. “It was tough to keep the ball in play, you know, it was really quick.”

Baghdatis has never beaten Federer in five matches, but pushed the No. 1 player on tour as he did a year ago in the Australian Open, when Federer won in four sets.

“Basically, I gave the first set away,” said Baghdatis, who helped Federer fight off two set points with a double-fault. Federer then won the tiebreaker, winning the first and last points with aces.

Only four seeds remain, including No. 9 James Blake, who beat Juan Carlos Ferrero 6-1, 6-4. Blake said he’s no longer serving as tentatively as he was earlier this week, after pulling a stomach muscle a week ago.

Roddick won the event in 2003 and 2006. He reached the quarterfinals in 2002, semifinals in 2004 and finals in 2005, when he lost to Federer.

After both players held serve en route to a tiebreaker, Roddick lost the first three points, starting with a double-fault. He finally won two points when Ferrer couldn’t handle serves of 227 and 228 kph, Roddick’s best of the set, and won another point with a 225 kph ace.

Ferrer closed out the tiebreaker with solid ground strokes, and Roddick threw his racket in disgust when his return on set point went wide.

Both players held throughout the second set until Ferrer broke Roddick in the 10th game.

Mixed fortunes

On a day of mixed fortunes for India, Mahesh Bhupathi and his British partner Jamie Murray crashed out of the men’s doubles event even as his one-time partner Leander Paes teamed up with Martin Damm to book a quarterfinal berth.

In the pre-quarterfinals, top seeds Bob and Mike Bryan swamped Bhupathi and Murray pair 6-3, 6-2, while Paes and Damm, seeded fourth, downed Frenchmen Julien Benneteau and Arnaud Clement 6-4, 7-5 to set up a quarterfinal clash with fifth seeds Paul Hanley and Kevin Ullyett.

The results (Third round): At Cincinnati (Cincinnati Masters): Roger Federer bt Marcos Baghdatis 7-6(5), 7-5; Nikolay Davydenko bt Tomas Berdych 6-3, 6-2; David Ferrer bt Andy Roddick 7-6(4), 6-4; Nicolas Almagro bt Jarkko Nieminen 6-2 , 6-2; Carlos Moya bt Juan-Martin del Potro 7-5, 3-6, 7-5; Lleyton Hewitt bt Jurgen Melzer 6-3, 6-3; Sam Querrey bt Juan Monaco 6-3, 7-5; James Blake bt Juan-Carlos Ferrero 6-1, 6-4.