1 Response to istanbul15federer_cuevas

1. Voo de Mar says:

   May 7, 2025 at 1:26 pm

   Points won by each set: | 33-26, 51-40 |
   Points won directly behind the serve:
   31 % Federer – 23 of 72
   15 % Cuevas – 12 of 78

   The first edition of the Istanbul Open (2015-18) and the officials could be super happy because the best player of the previous decade who knew about his slim chances to win another French Open title, decided to make a trip to Türkiye. In the final the 34-year-old Federer faced the best Uruguayan born in the 80s, who was entertaining the most satisfying period of his career (2015-16, in those years he played 6 out of his 10 ATP finals; he also reached 3 Slam quarterfinals in doubles)… Cuevas [23] won the toss, but elected to receive and soon afterwards found himself at 0:3. Federer’s advantage was quite overwhelming, but in the 2nd set he had one worse service game (at 4:3), and lost two games leading 40/15 and 40/0 respectively in Cuevas’ service games. In the tie-break 29-year-old Cuevas having saved three match points, had two set points on serve (8:7, 10:9) – on both occasions he decided to implement serve-and-volley even though hadn’t tried it before: first he made a big FH-volley error, then Federer passed him with his backhand down the line return. On Cuevas’ third set point (11:10) Federer forced a backhand error, and played very good volley from a difficult position to create his 5th championship point which was converted. A reminiscence of Federer’s Aussie Open ’10 final, but then a 13/11 tie-break which gave him the title occurred in the third set.

   Federer’s route to his 85th title (11th & last on clay):
   2 Jarkko Nieminen 6-2, 7-5
   Q Daniel Gimeno-Traver 7-6(3), 6-7(5), 6-3
   S Diego Schwartzman 2-6, 6-2, 7-5
   W Pablo Cuevas 6-3, 7-6(11)

   Serve & volley: Federer 6/7, Cuevas 0/2

   # Federer seven points away from losing to Schwartzman (the Swiss was serving first in the decider, no break until the last game)

   Log in to Reply