Roger Federer wins the 2007 Australian Open 7-6(2), 6-4, 6-4 against Fernando Gonzalez, its deja vu. This years Australian Open would bring Roger Federer onto the centre court against the 10th seed Chilean Fernando Gonzalez. In their previous encounters, Federer has a 9-0 match statistic against Gonzalez, however the critics expected this match up to be very different given Fernando Gonzalez’s form coming into the Australian Open 2007 grand slam final.
The match started and as expected, Fernando Gonzalez came out guns blazing – freely hitting his massive forehand. Federer meanwhile was working on combating the Gonzalez power by moving him around the court and forcing him out of his comfort zone. During the first set, Federer was unable to find the form that destroyed Andy Roddick in the semi-finals and was struggling with the windy conditions. With the higher than normal unforced errors coming from Federer, it gave Gonzalez a strong chance in the first set andd it was highly contested; so highly in fact that at one point it looked as though Gonzalez was going to snatch the set from Federer. The first set went down to the wire, requiring a tie breaker to decide and Federer turned up the heat and stormed home 7-6(2).
After a hard hitting first set, Gonzalez required medical intervention before the second set started and received quite a lot of massage into his shoulder. Once the second set got underway, the games were going with serve as expected. It seemed that at least some of the bite was taken out of the Gonzalez game during the second set; whether it was a by product of requiring the massage or just a tired body from the grand slam. Federer took an early point on the Gonzalez serve late in the set and pounced. A few short moments later and Federer had secured the break of serve and in a matter of minutes the set was in Roger Federer’s hands.
The third set of the match followed in a similar fashion to the second. Roger Federer continued to turn up the heat, showing why he is the undisputed world number one player. Although the third set score doesn’t reflect it, the was a one sided affair with Federer firmly controlling the game.
After winning his way through to the Australian Open final, Roger Federer has been setting new standards and breaking quite a few records:
- After a loss toward the end of last year, he is already on a 50+ match winning streak
- At the end of the month, he will break the record for the longest time ever held in #1 in the world with an incredible 160 weeks straight
- At the end of 2006, he had held the #1 title for three end of years running
- He is equal fifth on the all time grand slam winners list
- The first man since Bjorn Borg in 1980 to win a grand slam without dropping a set
- First man to win three grand slam titles at three different tournaments
- First to make the final four in 11 consecutive grand slams
With statistics like that, it is no surprise that Roger Federer is the Australian Open winner for 2007; he has to be one of, if not the greatest person to play the game of tennis. Roger is now well on his way to hopefully picking up the elusive grand slam (all four grand slam titles in a calendar year). The one tournament he is yet to win is the French Open, however he made the semi-finals in 2005 and the final in 2006; maybe 2007 will be the year of the Fed Express.