Well, what can you say? Berdych is always a dangerous player, and he proved it again. Federer looked like he was hitting his stride especially with easy wins over Clement and Melzer. To be fair, these two players are actually older than Federer, and neither hit with the pace of Berdych.
Federer tried to keep his first serve percentage up and that worked somewhat. Like Federer’s previous opponents, Berdych tried to attack Federer’s second serve and found some success in doing that. Meanwhile, Federer struggled to break Berdych. Berdych did get broken early in the second set, and Federer used that one break to take the set.
In the third set, Berdych had a break early, then added a second break, and again, Federer struggled with no opportunities to break.
By the fourth set, Federer was starting to see the Berdych serve better. He had a 0-40 game when Berdych double-faulted twice, but Berdych came back from that. Indeed, Federer appeared to have many chances in the fourth set. At 4-all, Federer was down break points but looked like he might save it, and yet Berdych kept getting the ball back and eventually secured the break. In the 5-4 game, Federer saved a match point, but Berdych again played solid as Federer struggled some with Berdych’s shots.
Federer, as usual when he loses, was not in control of his shots as much as he wanted to be. He was forced to play more shots up the middle and be more conservative rather than go for the lines as he wanted to. This gave Berdych chances to take the offense. Federer also chose to slice nearly all his backhand returns, something he did to great effect against Andy Murray at the Australian Open. But where Murray did not attack the slice much, Berdych was able to do so. Berdych also played some great defense. Late in the fourth set, Federer came into net off a strong forehand up the line. Berdych tossed up a lob and force Fed back to the baseline who had to reset the point, one which Berdych eventually won.
Final score: Berdych wins 6-4, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4.
And the magical ride of Yen-Hsun Lu came to a quick end as Djokovic totally outclassed Lu, returning well, asserting himself off the ground: 6-3, 6-2, 6-2.
