Rewind 2006: Federer Faces the Young Giant Killer, Baghdatis

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: January 6, 2010

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As we prepare for the first Grand Slam of the year, here is the first in a reprise of an idea introduced in 2009, taking a look back at some of the matches that made the headlines at the Australian Open.

 

It was a David and Goliath final.

It put a man who had already topped the world rankings for more than 100 weeks against a man who had only broken into the top 100 in the last year.

It pitched a man who had won each of the six Grand Slam finals he had already played against an unseeded entrant.

It was a face-off between a man with a 51-match winning streak on hard courts against a man he had beaten in all three of their previous meetings—and one of those defeats was at exactly the same tournament the year before.

The Goliath—a not entirely apposite description for this slight, youthful, 24-year-old figure—was Roger Federer.

The David—also slight, only fractionally shorter, and just 20 years old—was Marcos Baghdatis.

To add just a little piquancy to the encounter, Australia’s greatest champion—and winner of two calendar Grand Slams—had chosen this year to return, after a long absence, to the arena they had named after him: Rod Laver.

Federer had lost only four matches in the previous year, and held the Wimbledon and the U.S. Open titles. If he could win back the Australian title that he had forfeited the year before to a scintillating Marat Safin, he would need only the French to claim his own complete set of Slams.

Laver’s cup overran with enthusiasm for the two players. He described both Federer and Baghdatis as “a breathe of fresh air.”

The crowds, too, were electrified by the flowing, charismatic tennis that both men brought to the court. The Australians are the most ebullient and extrovert supporters of tennis and make the most of their short January window of ...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Tennis

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