Federer Shows Rust, but Also Resilience in Win over India's Nagal

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Federer Shows Rust, but Also Resilience in Win over India's Nagal

Roger Federer found himself a set down to a qualifier who had never won a tour-level match before, but righted the ship with time to spare and eventually emerged with a complicated 4-6 6-1 6-2 6-4 over India’s Sumit Nagal at the US Open on Day 1.

It was a strange beginning as it was Nagal (playing in his first Grand Slam main draw) who rose to greet the pressure of playing on Arthur Ashe stadium and snagged the opening set from a shaky Federer. The Swiss committed 19 errors in the stanza and Nagal was more than happy to take advantage with a break in the final game to seal it.

But Federer, who has now won 62 consecutive first-round matches at the majors, quickly hit back and dropped just three games over the next two sets before he slid past Nagal, closing the match by saving four break points in the final game before converting match point at the 2:29 mark.

Federer: "Maybe it's not a bad thing to go through a match like this. It was very similar at Wimbledon when I dropped the first set there, as well, in the first round. At the end you look at the last three sets, and they were good. That's encouraging."
— TennisNow (@Tennis_Now) August 27, 2019

It was a particularly rough day at the service stripe for Federer that saw him turn in seven double-faults and face 13 break points, saving ten.

“What I was realizing is that I was hitting a lot of serves long,” Federer said. “So you kind of try to, like, clock them down. I don't want to say you aim for the net. You aim more of a trajectory downwards. Never a good thing when you're having to aim in the wrong place, hoping it to go in the right place.”

Federer ultimately was just pleased to go through.

He’ll have a day off before facing Damir Dzumhur of Bosnia in the second round.

“Maybe it's not a bad thing to go through a match like this,” he said. “It was very similar at Wimbledon when I dropped the first set there, as well, in the first round. At the end you look at the last three sets, and they were good. That's encouraging.”

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