Federer keeps his semi hopes alive, Murray storms into semis

Roger Federer kept his fire burning with a win over alternate Radek Stepanek. Federer was told after his pre-match warm-up that his opponent would be Stepanek, after Andy Roddick withdrew from the tournament with an ankle injury. The first set saw some breaks of serve, but Federer held his nerve in the tiebreak to win it 7-4. The next set, Roger broke the Stepanek serve to be in the lead 5-3, but then failed to win a point on his own serve in the next game. Federer then broke Stepanek again to take the match 76(4) 64. Federer is now with a win-loss of 1-1 and needs to win his next match against Murray to get to the semis.

Andy Murray on the other hand recorded his third straight win over Gilles Simon with a score of 64 62. The Scot went 4-0 against Simon, but Simon fired back to 3-4 with Murray going back to his power game and winning the first set. The second set was much easier for Murray since Simon kept raising his number of unforced errors and eventually letting Murray record a comfortable win. Murray is now guaranteed a semifinal spot.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Singles - Round Robin
[1] R Federer (SUI) d [Alt] R Stepanek (CZE)* 76(4) 64
[3] A Murray (GBR) d [8] G Simon (FRA) 64 62

* [Alt] R Stepanek (CZE) replaced [5] A Roddick (USA) - (ankle)

Doubles - Round Robin
[2] D Nestor (CAN) / N Zimonjic (SRB) d [4] J Bjorkman (SWE) / K Ullyett (ZIM) 61 64
[7] M Fyrstenberg (POL) / M Matkowski (POL) d [6] L Dlouhy (CZE) / L Paes (IND) 76(2) 63