Stumbling on his way to the net, Roger Federer dropped his racket and fell to his knees on the red clay. Hardly the sort of grace and precision the world has come to expect from the 17-time Grand Slam champion. There were other unusual sights in Federer’s 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 (4) loss in the quarterfinals at Roland Garros on Tuesday against his pal and Swiss Davis Cup teammate Stan Wawrinka. “I made 30-something errors today. He, maybe, made one,” said Federer, exaggerating a bit.
Rarely injured and appearing in a 62nd consecutive major, Federer received treatment on his right hand from a trainer during a second-set tie-break. For years and years, a dominant and confident force in tennis, Federer slumped in his changeover chair, head bowed, after falling behind two sets to none. So long superior to the younger Wawrinka, Federer was defeated for only the third time in their 19 head-to-head matches, and for the first time in five meetings at Grand Slam tournaments. “I tried many things. One of them was trying to put (the ball) up high. Another one was trying to chip it shorter. Another one was trying to hit through the wind,” Federer said. “Obviously I was not going to leave the French Open without having tried everything out there.” In eight years from 2005 to 2012, Federer had reached at least the semifinals here seven
times, including winning the 2009 championship to complete a career Grand Slam. But this is now the third year in a row that he has exited Roland Garros in the quarterfinals or earlier. Give Wawrinka credit. Powering the ball from the baseline in Court Suzanne Lenglen on a windy day, he produced ground-strokes that cut through gusts topping 30 mph (50 kph).
Late in the third set, Federer missed a backhand that got caught in the wind and let out a guttural “Aaaaah!” He never managed to consistently find the range on his shots, and Wawrinka put together a 43-28 edge in winners. Wawrinka also managed to break Federer’s serve three times, while saving all four break points he faced. All of those chances for Federer came in the first set. As well as Wawrinka played, he probably would have been just fine without the point conceded by Federer that made it 4-3 for the eventual winner after a disputed call in the tiebreaker. “I played my best match in a Grand Slam tournament,” the eighth-seeded Wawrinka said, quite a statement considering he won the championship at the 2014 Australian Open, “and my best match on clay.” “We [knew] he can do this,” Federer said.
“It’s just nice for him now, even talking for him, to string it together on a big occasion like this at the French, where I always thought he’d have his best chance to do well.” Wawrinka next faces No.14 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who weathered a brave rally from Kei Nishikori. From two sets down, the Japanese fifth seed pushed their quarterfinal into a decider where Tsonga proved
just too strong. One women’s semifinal was set on Tuesday: No.7 Ana Ivanovic against No.13 Lucie Safarova. Safarova beat Garbine Muguruza 7-6(3), 6-3 to reach the second major semifinal of her career. Ivanovic reached her first Grand Slam semifinal since winning the 2008 Roland Garros, eliminating 20-yearold Elina Svitolina of Ukraine 6-3, 6-2.
“I don’t know if I should feel very old,” said Ivanovic, 27, “or very happy.” In the juniors’ tournament, Y. Pranjala and her Chinese partner Wushuang Zheng moved into the girls’ doubles quarterfinals, cruising past the unseeded pairing of Anastasia Gasanova and Maia Lumsden 7-5, 6-4. However, Sumit Nagal crashed out of the boys’ singles with a 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 to Korean Yunseong Chung in the second round.
