In all the years that Rafael Nadal has played the French Open, he’s only been pushed to 5 sets once.  It happened in an opening r0und match against John Isner back in 2011.  Roger Federer?  He’s been pushed to 5 sets numerous times.  During the 2009 campaign, the only year Federer ever won the French Open, he was pushed to 5 sets twice, once by Tommy Haas in the fourth round and once by del Potro in the semifinals.

Federer’s fourth round opponent was Gilles Simon.  Simon burst on the scene back in 2008 when he beat Roger Federer twice and reached the top ten.  He got injured shortly after, and his rank started to plummet.  He didn’t play particularly well in either 2009 or 2010.  By 2011, he was starting to improve his ranking once again.  2013 has been a very solid year for Simon, especially on clay, arguably his weakest surface.

He’s reached the semis of Rotterdam, the semis of Marseille, the fourth round of Indian Wells, the fourth round of Miami.  On clay, he’s made the semis of Bucharest, the third round of Madrid, the third round of Rome, and the quarters of Nice.  Clearly, hard courts are still his best surface, but he makes it to the mid rounds of the clay surface.

To reach the fourth round, Simon had to escape a very hot Lleyton Hewitt in the first round, coming from 2 sets down to love, to claw his way back to a 5th set where he seemed to be cruising to a win with breaks in hand, before Hewitt clawed to tie it.  He broke Hewitt at the end to seal the win.  Simon was similarly pushed to 5 sets by Sam Querrey as the two alternated taking sets until the fifth where Simon again had early breaks and took the fifth set easily.

Federer’s route to the fourth round had been much easier.  He faced qualifiers in the first two rounds and predictably beat them in straight sets.  He faced Julien Benneteau, a French veteran who had pushed Federer to 5 sets at Wimbledon last year.  This time Benneteau was not 100%, and with an injury bothering him, Federer also won this match in 5 sets.

Federer might have expected to beat Simon in straight sets.  After all, Simon lacks the kind of power that would bother Roger Federer.  Simon is considered the “pusher” of the pro world, hitting medium pace shots and trying to wear you down with his ability to run down shots using his exceptional speed and make his opponents play lots of balls.

In the third round of Rome, Federer beat Simon 61 62 in an easy win.

However, Simon is the kind of player that likes to adjust what he does to what his opponents do.  With a plethora of data available, a savvy player can analyze how other players play, look for their tendencies, and adjust.

Simon’s strategy was to put a bit more pace on the shots when aiming for the open court, but otherwise apply a strategy that Nadal has played so well.  Hit to the Federer backhand.  Of course, Simon lacks the topspin to really pressure Federer the way Nadal does, but it still makes sense to attack the Federer backhand has it’s difficult for Federer to hit winners on that side, and he rarely goes for winners on his backhand.

The strategy didn’t work that well in the first set as Federer got to a quick start and won the opening sets, 61.  However, by the second set, Simon was playing longer points and Federer was coughing up more errors.  Simon took the set 64.  Then, he took the third set, 62, and all of a sudden Roger Federer was in trouble.

Federer has been in these situations before.  On the one hand, Simon has him down two sets to one, but he wasn’t overpowering Federer, just outlasting him.  Federer needed to cut down on errors, and keep aggressive, and hope Simon w0uld falter some.  And this is what happened.  Federer was able to break Simon several times to win the fourth set, 62, and then had an early break in the fifth.  It was enough to secure a 63 win in the fifth set.

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Tommy Robredo’s ranking was in triple figures mired ar0und 500 due to injuries.  Tommy didn’t play 2012 until June when he had to labor in the Challenger circuit, which he was immediately successful.  At the Challenger level, Robredo was mostly winning tournaments while at the pro level, he was winning maybe a round, and if lucky two.

By 2013, he was making deeper runs in tournaments including a semifinal run at Buenos Aires, a win at Casablanca, a quarterfinal run in Barcelona and Portugal.  All these were good enough to get his rank at 34, and with Murray and del Potro not playing the French, Robredo was the 32nd seed.

However, Robredo’s road in the French has been a tough one.  In the second round, he came from 2 sets to none down against to beat Sijsling.  In the third round, he beat crown favorite, Gael Monfils, again from two sets to none down to win in 5.  And today, he faced Nicolas Almagro, a player who had beaten him 5 times, though 4 of the times were during a relatively down period in Robredo’s career (the last 4 years).

Indeed, Robredo’s best event has been the French where he’s reached the quarterfinals 4 times, but none since 2009.  In odd years between 2003 and 2009, Robredo made the quarters.  He’s not been terribly relevant for about 4 years with half a dozen Spaniards (or more) ranked above him during that period of time.

And again, things didn’t look good for Robredo as he, once again, fell back 2 sets to love.  But he began to claw his way back, taking the third set, 64, then the fourth set, 64.  And finally, at 4-all in the fifth, Robredo played a good aggressive game to break Almagro, and held to win 64 in the fifth.  After his third consecutive comeback win (the last time this happened at the French was in the 1920s by Henri Cochet, one of the four Musketeers), Robredo fell sobbing, unable to believe he was back in the quarterfinals, given how difficult his 2012 was.

Tommy Robredo’s road doesn’t get any easier.  He’ll face David Ferrer, the man who beat him in the semis at Buenos Aires, and has a 6-2 record over him.

Ferrer played Kevin Anderson in the fourth round.  Anderson has had a pretty solid clay season, highlighted by a finals run in Casablanca losing to, you guessed it, Tommy Robredo.  Anderson is a more mobile version of John Isner.  The two only differ in height by about an inch, but Anderson doesn’t serve nearly as well, but moves a lot better.  However, as far as hitting groundies, he’s still at a far different level than David Ferrer, whose punishing style pressures players much taller than him.  Ferrer just grinds and grinds, gets to so many shots.  It doesn’t help that Anderson doesn’t hit the ball nearly as hard as Isner, so he’s forced to rally with Ferrer, and has to use his speed to try to stay in rallies.

Ferrer won this match easily 63 61 61.  He’ll face Robredo next.

Up next for Federer is Jo-Wilfried Tsonga who, with the loss of Simon today and Paire yesterday, becomes one of two Frenchmen left, the other being Richard Gasquet.  Tsonga was predicted to be Federer’s toughest match in a route to the finals, and so far both men have done their parts to reach the quarterfinals.  Tsonga won his match over a resurgent Troicki, 63 63 63.  In four rounds, Tsonga has yet to drop a set.

With his win over Simon, Federer reached his 900th match win.  To put this in perspective, Murray recently reached his 400th win and Ferrer recently reached 500.