Federer eases through in Basel

Federer celebrates his straight sets win Keystone

Roger Federer cruised past Spain's Albert Costa on Wednesday to complete a perfect opening round for the homegrown players at this year's Swiss Indoors tennis tournament.

Playing in front of his hometown crowd, the 20-year-old from Basel barely put a foot wrong in beating Costa 6-3, 6-3. His victory ensures that all four Swiss players involved in this year’s event have now made it safely through to the second round – for the first time in the tournaments history.

“During the match I didn’t think about the fact that the other guys had all won,” Federer told swissinfo after booking his own place in round two. “But just for myself I wanted to get through because I’ve been struggling a bit lately.”

Strong favourite

Unlike Michel Kratochvil, Marc Rosset and George Bastl, Federer came into his first round match as the strong favourite against a clay court specialist ranked more than 20 places below him in the world standings.

If any of those in the Basel crowd were worried about seeing Costa pull off an unpopular upset, Federer’s play at the start of the match would have eased their doubts.

Seeming almost to anticipate his opponent’s every move, Federer prowled the court with menacing agility, combining an awesome backhand service return with fast running and technical prowess.

“I’m really happy with the way it went today,” a grinning Federer told swissinfo afterwards. “I really focussed in the beginning of both sets and after that I could really enjoy himself.”

Federer’s concentration start certainly reaped dividends. After comfortably holding his first service game, the young Swiss star broke the Spaniard to take an early 2-0 lead.

Rare lapse

A rare lapse in the following game saw Federer tease his opponent with three break points, but with three strong serves the home favourite pulled himself back from the brink, going on to win the game and the set without further difficulty.

Costa’s hopes of a comeback were to take another early dive, with Federer grabbing another break in the first game of the second set, converting the break point with a fierce backhand shot which whipped past a stranded Costa at the net before skimming a tramline.

The next seven games all went with serve, forcing Costa to serve for the set at 3-5 down. After defending two break points to take the game to deuce, the Spaniard double-faulted before sending his next shot long, bringing delight to the Swiss crowd after just over an hour of play.

Having perhaps now found the tonic for an autumn racked with minor injury worries, Federer now faces the prospect of another highly winnable match in Thursday’s second round meeting with Belgium world number 38 Xavier Malisse.

by Mark Ledsom, Basel