Roger Federer moved to within one victory of capturing his eighth Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships title, which could represent the 100th tour-level crown of his career, on Friday night. The Swiss superstar cruised past Borna Coric at the Aviation Club in a comprehensive 6-2, 6-2 victory over 67 minutes for a shot at history.
“I was really happy with my play today,” said Federer. “In terms of feeling, [this match] was definitely by far the best one [this week], so that was good. I’m sure Borna was feeling it a little bit from his past few matches.”
If the Swiss superstar is to join Jimmy Connors (109 titles) as the second man in the Open Era to reach a century of singles trophies, he will have to snap the eight-match winning streak of Stefanos Tsitsipas, the reigning Next Gen ATP Finals champions. Last month, Tsitsipas beat Federer 6-7(11), 7-6(3), 7-5, 7-6(5) in the Australian Open fourth round.
Tsitsipas Stuns Federer To Reach First Slam Quarter-final
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“[Stefanos] showed me at the Australian Open, how hard he is [to play],” said Federer. “I hope I’m going to play well… We’re still far from [reaching 100 titles], it seems. I’m just going to try to focus and play good tennis.”
Federer won five of the first six games against Coric and converted his fourth set-point chance at 5-2 with an unreturned serve to complete the 32-minute opener. The second-seeded Swiss, who continued his policy of attacking the net and playing a number of drop shots, was gifted the opening game of the second set when Coric struck a forehand wide.
Coric’s error count increased and at 2-4, 30/40, a wild forehand spelled the end for the sixth-seeded Croatian. Federer wrapped up his seventh victory in eight matches this year with an ace for a place in his 152nd tour-level final (99-52 record).
“I think it was important to mix it up, be solid, not give him too many chances and keep showing him it’s going to be really difficult for him to win,” said Federer. “At the end, I actually played really good. I’m very pleased.”
Coric, now 6-3 on the season, had recorded three consecutive third-set tie-break victories in Dubai over lucky loser Jiri Vesely, Tomas Berdych and Nikoloz Basilashvili.
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