Tennis Forever

[Arvind Srinivasan]

Federer's at a point in time in his career where he's going get such losses. Age catches up to you. And that too on clay when the chances of closing out points early are minimal. You have to rely on your baseline game and Federer today was just getting pummeled from that front. He's been successful in the last year and a half due to his rejigged attacking play, but that really will not be of much use on clay. And Federer knowing this never tried to come to the net that often in the first set. But when he did in the second, he was just being passed mercilessly on both wings from Monfils. If Federer wants to make a mark in this year's clay season, he needs to find a way to improve his game from the baseline. Going by today's result, any half decent baseliner will fancy his chances against Federer on clay. All that guy has to hope is for Federer to have poor day at the baseline which invariably happens once at least in every two matches. But all said and done, Monfils was unrelenting. He was mentally in control throughout. I fancy his chances of making it to the finals. Good job mate...