Rafael Nadal

Federer and Nadal Take on America in the Quarters

April 2, 2008

With the top two players in the world having their individual moments of strife thus far in 2008, it’s refreshing to see that both Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have easily reached the final eight at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami, Florida this week.

Nadal is yet to drop a set and Federer has only needed five and a half sets to get through three matches as Robin Soderling retired midway through the second set in the third round. However, they will both face their toughest opponents yet when they are forced to take on the two home crowd favourites in Americans James Blake and Andy Roddick.

Nadal and Blake are up first with a rematch of their quarter-final at the Pacific Life Open. Nadal defeated Blake for the first time in his career at Indian Wells but Blake still holds a 3-1 advantage. Despite the winning record, Blake is always considered the underdog when it comes to playing the No. 2 player in the world but he knows that he can hold his own.

“I still feel like I can go out there and go after my shots. If I can do that and put it in my control, I feel comfortable against him,” said Blake. “He's never making it easy for anyone to beat him. He makes every match a hard fought battle but I'm looking forward to that again.”

Federer and Roddick have a completely different dynamic as the Swiss No. 1 holds a 15-1 record against the No. 6 American. In recent weeks, Roddick has defeated both Nadal and Novak Djokovic which has built up his confidence immensely. A victory against Federer would solidify Roddick as a major threat on tour again and possibly position him to win his first Masters Shield in almost two years.

“He's one of the few guys that I've probably played three or four really, really good matches against and came up short,” said Roddick. “I do believe that I'll beat him one of these times. Hopefully that will be this time around.”

Although Federer is the clear favourite, he knows that Roddick always plays just a little bit harder in front of a home crowd.

“The toughest places to play against him are always in America. I've had some close ones here with him over the years,” said Federer. “He is a guy I always enjoy playing against and we have a lot of respect for each other. I think it will be a great match-up for this tournament.”

The other two quarter-final matches are much more low-key as No. 4 Nikolay Davydenko will take on the only remaining unseeded competitor Janko Tipsarevic (Serbia). Davydenko has squeaked through every match he has played in Miami, needing three sets to beat all three opponents he’s faced. Tipsarevic will be playing in his first ever Master Series quarter-final. Though he seems to have come out of nowhere, Tipsarevic has actually performed admirably when it comes to matches against top-ranked players on a big stage. He pushed Roddick to four sets at Wimbledon in 2006, David Nalbandian to five sets at the Australian Open in 2007 and Federer to five sets at the same tournament this year. His biggest win came in 2007 at Wimbledon against Fernando Gonzalez who was No. 6 at the time.

Lastly, No. 10 Tomas Berdych (Czech Republic) and No. 31 Igor Andreev (Russia) will vie for a spot in the semifinals as both players have very quietly delivered impressive results in Miami.