Basel Flashback: Roger Federer fires 37 winners against David Goffin

In 2017, the hometown hero Roger Federer and David Goffin competed for the third time in Basel and sixth overall. Federer scored his sixth triumph, toppling the Belgian 6-1, 6-2 in an hour, advancing to his 11th consecutive Basel final and delivering one of the finest performances in front of the home crowd! The seven-time champion played textbook tennis, performing incredible ball striking and imposing his strokes without making too many errors. In a rather flawless performance, Federer did just about everything right, serving without any troubles and returning almost as good as that, taming his strokes nicely and using every opportunity to attack. Federer dropped eight points in eight service games, never facing a break point and stealing 52% of the return points to convert four out of ten break chances for a commanding victory and the place in his 13th Basel final. The match could have been even shorter if the third game of the second set didn't develop into a ten-minute marathon or if Roger converted a few more break chances.

Despite that, the Swiss was in full control from the first to last point, never letting Goffin finding any rhythm. David hit 20 winners from 39 points he won, in the only segment that carried him towards those three games and to avoid a complete disaster. Federer hit 21 unreturnable serves and had complete domination in the exchanges, attacking every shorter ball and keeping the points on his racquet with aggressive initial groundstrokes.

In 2017, Roger Federer toppled David Goffin to reach the Basel final.

Goffin couldn't exploit Roger's backhand, with the Swiss spraying only six errors in total from that wing and leaving his opponent without any game plan or an idea how to impose his shots and move Federer from the comfort zone.

Roger had 16 winners (nine from his forehand) while David stayed on five, beating the Belgian even more convincingly in the errors segment. David had 11 unforced mistakes and 16 that Roger forced (eight from forehand and backhand each), which brings him to 27, 16 more than Roger, who stayed on five unforced and six forced errors. Roger had no unforced errors in the entire first set, and those 11 points he failed to return across the net showed how well he played, considering he was in the attacking mode from start to finish. 70% of the points ended with four shots or less, thanks to those 41 service winners they hit combined, with Roger forging a 44-30 advantage in those. He also dominated the mid-range rallies 14-7, securing eight out of ten most extended exchanges to seal the deal in a dominant start.

from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/36lk3RT