Roger Federer had never beaten Gilles Simon in two previous meetings. He has now, but it took him 3:19 of scintillating tennis to get the better of the lithe Frenchman in the second round of the Australian Open.
In a match that Rod Laver himself would have been proud to have played, Federer finally blunted Simon’s spirited comeback to win 6-2, 6-3, 4-6, 4-6, 6-3. It was, as Federer said afterward, a strange match because a clear early advantage was wiped out by the steadily increasing accuracy of Simon’s ground strokes and the frequent brilliance of his service returns.
“The third set was weird,” said Federer. “I don’t usually drop serve three times and yet I broke him twice and lost it 6-4.”
So it was not a duel in which serve dominated and it was all the better for that. As a full moon hung over Melbourne, a packed stadium of 15,000 sat spellbound at some of the stroke play laid out before them by the two cleanest hitters in the game. Yes, Federer sometimes shanked a forehand or lost control on his backhand side but that had much to do with the speed the Frenchman was generating off his ground strokes.
Federer tried getting in close as Simon started to turn the tables in the third and fourth sets but Simon’s speed about court often thwarted his attempts to dominate from the net and it was only when Gilles started to show signs of slowing down a fraction in the latter stages of the fifth that Federer looked a likely winner.
“I was thinking, well Gilles won Sydney last week so maybe he’ll get tired,” Federer joked with Jim Courier in a post-match interview when asked what was going through his mind at two sets apiece.
Federer was probably spot on because Simon, who rose to No. 6 in the world at the start of 2009 before suffering a bad knee injury, had played five tough matches on his way to winning the ATP title in Sydney just last week, while Federer had been practicing at his own pace. With that in mind, we saw more Swiss drop shots spinning off Roger’s racket — shots that started to stretch Simon too far.
Simon felt that the decisive moment came at 1-1 in the fifth when he had Federer 0-30 down on his serve.
“I felt a change then,” said Simon. “He came up with two aces and the second serve got better. Before that, for two sets I thought I was playing a little better than him. But, in the end, of course I get a little tired. There are not many players who can play longer than me but Roger is one them. He was impressive.”
There was more success for France during the evening session as Gael Monfils delighted a big crowd out on the Margaret Court Arena by beating the Portuguese No. 1 Frederico Gil 6-4, 6-3, 1-6, 6-2, setting up a third-round meeting with Federer’s Swiss Davis Cup colleague Stan Wawrinka.
Earlier, No. 3 seed Novak Djokovic, the champion here in 2008, defeated Croatian newcomer Ivan Dodig 7-5, 6-7, 6-0, 6-2.
