Federer, Wawrinka Advance Into Rogers Cup Third Round
Two-time Rogers Cup champion Roger Federer rolled into the second-round in Toronto on Tuesday as he defeated wild card Peter Polansky 6-2, 6-0. The match took just 52 minutes and the Swiss played a near perfect match to get past the 129th-ranked Polansky.
“I started well and that’s always helpful to play more freely,” said Federer. “I think I could have served better at times, but other than that, already in practice I felt I was moving well.”
Federer picked up all six break-point opportunities he faced including one to begin the match which really set the tone.
The match was his first since losing in the Wimbledon final to Novak Djokovic in what was most likely the best match of the 2014 season. He is playing some of his best tennis in years and will look to continue that when he meets the winner of Marin Cilic and Malek Jaziri in the second-round.
Federer’s countryman Stan Wawrinka faced a bit more trouble in his opening round match as Wawrinka was forced to come back from a set down in order to beat Frenchman Benoit Paire 4-6, 6-3, 7-6(2).
Paire had defeated Wawrinka when they played in this tournament last year and took the opening set on Tuesday, but the Swiss would hang tough and take the second set.
The deciding third-set would head into a tiebreaker as Paire actually had an opportunity for match point with Wawrinka serving. Down 4-5 in the set and 30/40 in the game, Wawrinka ripped an ace to stay alive. After Paire saved two break points himself, Wawrinka would serve out the match in the tiebreaker to escape with the three-set victory.
He now moves on to play the winner of 16th-seeded Fabio Fognini and Kevin Anderson, who play later Wednesday for a spot in the third-round.
While Federer and Wawrinka earned byes into the second-round and now wait to see who their third-round opponents will be, Americans Jack Sock and Donald Young rounded out first-round action with victories on Tuesday.
Sock cruised past Austrian Jurgen Melzer 6-1, 6-3. The victory sets up a rematch between Sock and Canadian Milos Raonic, who defeated Sock in the second-round of last week’s Citi Open.
“I’m definitely excited for tomorrow,” said Sock yesterday after his win. “The juices will be flowing. He got me in my home country last week, so I’m going to try to maybe get some revenge.”
Young battled back from a set down to beat Canada’s Frank Dancevic 5-7, 6-0, 6-3 to move into the second-round. He will meet seventh-seeded Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov on Wednesday for a spot in the third-round.
Two other Americans will take to the Toronto courts on Wednesday, as Michael Russell battles fifth-seeded Spaniard David Ferrer while Tim Smyczek duels with another Spaniard, Feliciano Lopez.
