It didn’t take long—five minutes to be exact—to see that Andreas Seppi wasn’t the same player he’d been the last couple of days in Rome, and neither was the level of his opposition. In those five minutes, his opponent, Roger Federer, began their quarterfinal with a quick hold, a quick break, and an even quicker hold for 3-0. It appeared that the match could be done in under half an hour. In the end it took Federer all of 43 minutes to end Seppi’s dream run at the Foro with a 6-1, 6-2 drubbing.
Seppi was coming off two straight epic wins, and the wear and tear showed. He was a step slow from the start, and he seemed to struggle at times just to get the ball over the net. Federer, meanwhile, was sharp. By the fifth game, he had connected on 10 winners against three errors, and he didn’t miss a first serve until he was serving for the set at 5-1. He finished with 81 percent of first serves in; won 78 percent of his second serve points to 38 percent for Seppi, and hit 25 winners to the Italian’s seven.
Federer picked on Seppi’s weak second serve with driving ground strokes and back-spinning drop shots. He played much of the match on top of the baseline, where he dictated with his forehand; there wasn’t a lot of time wasted rallying. And he was 11/14 at the net. Federer essentially ended the match there, with a sharp reflex backhand volley that gave him two break points at 2-2 in the second set. Two points later, he hit a forcing forehand to break and then ran out the final three games. The only tiny glitch came when Federer went down 15-40 on his serve at 0-1 in the second. But Seppi, who missed a return on one point and a forehand on the other, couldn’t make him pay.
Seppi, the story of Rome so far, exits, and the business end of the tournament begins. That includes a semifinal between Federer and Novak Djokovic, the first since their five-set classic at the U.S. Open last fall. Need I say more?
—Steve Tignor