rogerfederer.com - A narrow victory

A narrow victory

A few moments in his match at the Tennis Masters Cup today, it appeared that Roger would lose against Andy Roddick He was down one set to love and he had a double match point against him in the second set tie break at 4-6.

But then, just like many times before, the wheels fell off in Roddick’s attempt to oust the best tennis player on the planet. Roger fought off three match points to win the second set tie breaker and then he cruised in the deciding set to defeat his American opponent 4-6, 7-6 (10-8), 6-4.

"One of the only things I probably would have changed about that point at 6-4 is putting a first serve in," Roddick said. "This won't be the last time I think about that." Roger also agreed that was the turning point.

"Early on in the tiebreak already when I was down 4-1 and him serving ... I thought, well, probably not my day, I'm not playing that great and he's not giving me a chance, so I guess that's it.," Roger said afterwards. "But I told myself, you know, maybe I can make him nervous by just staying along and in the match. That's what happened. I don't know if he got nervous or it just went my way in the end, but it was really close, that's for sure," he said.

Roger has now extended his winning stretch in round-robin matches at the season-ending championship to 14 and his streak against Roddick to eight. He's 12-1 career against Roddick, who has not beaten our star since the semifinals at Montreal in 2003.

Roger will meet Ljubicic on Thursday at 12.00 (Swiss time).