Four unforced errors in the first five points by Gilles Simon in his quarterfinal with Roger Federer was an obvious giveaway that the Frenchman was not feeling right.
That made it 1-0, with a service break to Federer, and when the Swiss got his second service break to lead 3-0, Simon called for the trainer and soon announced he would be stopping because of a problem with his neck. He could be heard saying that he knew it would not improve and so it made no sense to continue.
After playing matches on back-to-back days against Juan Monaco and Olivier Rochus (even if the latter match started after midnight on Wednesday), Federer now will head into a semifinal against either Rafael Nadal or Tomas Berdych having just played just three games in the previous two days.
The prospect of a pair of very difficult matches against Simon, who held a 2-1 record against Federer and pushed him to five sets at this year's Australian Open, and a tough Friday semi has obviously become much more manageable for the world No. 3. He has reached his third Miami semifinal in the past four years, but has not made the final since winning the title in 2005 and 2006.
In the head-to-heads, Federer is 8-14 against Nadal and 9-3 against Berdych. Everyone knows about his difficulties against Nadal, but Berdych has won two of their last three matches, and Federer’s 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (5) victory in their last meeting—in last summer's Toronto quarterfinals, coming back from 5-2 down in the final set—was edge-of-the-ledge stuff.
As for Nadal, it's interesting to note that he and Federer have only played twice in each of the past two years after playing six times in 2006, five times in 2007 and four times in 2008. Perhaps a meeting this early in the season might suggest more frequent match-ups in 2011.
Getting back to today’s match: It would probably be wise if tournaments had some sort of contingency plan should something unforeseen—like the Simon retirement—occur. Maybe if the winning player had played less than a set, he could remain on the court for a bit to aim at targets, with prizes going to people in the crowd, or give some kind of a skills demonstration. Anything to make the paying public feel like they got a bit more of their money’s worth.
Certainly, it would also make sense if the player who retires could use the stadium PA system to explain his injury and apologize to the crowd. Everyone has to be bummed that a very intriguing Federer-Simon match-up came to such an anti-climactic finish.
—Tom Tebbutt