Fuente : Wimbledon
http://www.wimbledon.org

WIMBLEDON: For Roger, it's Victory or Bust

/noticias.info/ Wednesday, 22 June, 2005

For a gentle, quietly spoken and extremely polite man, Roger Federer can be quite hard. Stern even. As the champion of the past two years - and the darling of the Centre Court - he is simply not going to be beaten here. And that's final.

Not that Federer put it quite like that. He is far too nice. But as he moved past Ivo Minar in three sets, he made his intentions very clear.

Minar had never played in a Grand Slam before; his only experience of grass court tennis had come in two doomed attempts to qualify for the Bristol Challenger two years ago and for Wimbledon last year. With that sort of record, his straight sets victory over Michael Tabara on Monday was rather impressive.

But this has been a year of breakthroughs for the Czech. In January he qualified in Sydney and then made his way through to the final, stepping over such supposedly bigger, better and more experienced names as Nikolay Davydenko and Radek Stepanek. Even when he got to the final, he made Lleyton Hewitt run for a while before the Australian sized him up and cut him down.

Federer did much the same to the young hopeful but, even so, he did not find it quite as straightforward as he had hoped. "I just had to hang in there and wait for my chance," he said. "He didn't give me much chance early on. From the baseline he was tough. He was hitting hard and it was tough to get the rallies going."

But Federer had seen Minar before. They played in Dubai earlier this year and Federer, less than fresh from his win in Rotterdam the week before, had an almighty struggle to win in three long sets. Here, though he knew it would be different.

"Today, obviously, I knew it was going to be different," Federer said. "I knew that I was going to get more chances from the baseline because I feel better here. I know what it's like. I've been here for a long time."

And that's what real champions are like. They know their place, they know their worth and they have utter confidence in what they can do. Losing is not one of Federer's favourite pursuits but it goes with the job - and yet losing here is not an option. Federer does not 'do' losing in SW19.

Looking around his rivals, he was feeling rather confident. Yes, Marat Safin was doing well but the Swiss had beaten him just a matter of days ago in Halle. If Lleyton Hewitt reaches the semi-finals, he will have played himself into form but, never forget, Federer beat Hewitt six times last year and he has not succumbed to the Australian firebrand since 2003. Federer is awfully good. He knows it and he knows that the other players know it, too.

"I think it helps sometimes," he said. "But you've got to ask the other players what it does. I've only played against a few No.1s in the world and you always feel the pressure. You always feel that if you give the other guy a chance, he'll take it. Once he's in front, he's not going to give it away. These are the moments that make the best players stay up there."


Written by Alix Ramsey notas_de_prensa_archivo