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Federer flops in Gstaad

Federer will be sitting out the rest of the Gstaad tournament Keystone

Swiss tennis star Roger Federer has suffered a shock defeat to Czech qualifier Radek Stepanek in the second round of the Gstaad Swiss Open.

Twenty-four hours after celebrating his first ever win in the Swiss resort, Federer (ATP 11) found himself contemplating another early departure from the Bernese Oberland.

The Swiss number one made a bright enough start to Tuesday’s match, but then appeared to lose both his concentration and his timing.

That, coupled with an increasingly strong showing by Stepanek (ATP 110) was enough to send the home favourite and tournament third seed tumbling 6-3, 3-6, 2-6.

“I felt very good after the first set,” Federer told swissinfo afterwards, “and then suddenly I played a bad game at the start of the second which gave him all the confidence. In the third set, my serve broke down and I couldn’t break back against Stepanek’s serve.”

Disappointing record

Federer’s defeat extends his disappointing record at Gstaad with Tuesday’s first round win over Morocco’s Hicham Arazi marking his only singles victory at the Swiss tournament since his professional debut here in 1998.

But the young Swiss insisted it wasn’t home crowd pressure that caused Wednesday’s defeat.

“I think all the pressure came from myself, because I didn’t think I should be losing to a player from outside the top 100,” Federer said. “But the men’s game is so open at the moment that you can lose to anyone if you’re not playing at your best.”

Rosset last Swiss

With this year’s tournament already deprived of fellow Swiss players Michel Kratochvil, George Bastl and Ivo Heuberger, veteran star Marc Rosset is now the only homegrown player left in contention.

Rosset, who beat Bastl in the first round, is next set to face Romanian fourth seed Andrei Pavel who overcame Wimbledon finalist David Nalbandian in the last of the first round matches on Wednesday.

by Mark Ledsom, Gstaad

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SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR