Are we sure it is not hurricane season in Australia? Unless I was hallucinating for the past hour and a half, I could guarantee I witnessed a category 5 Swiss cyclone named Roger Federer thrash Tomas Berdych on Rod Laver Arena.<\/p>\n
The 17-time Grand Slam champion showed no mercy and cruised to a robust 6-2 6-4 6-4 victory against the No. 10 player<\/a> in the ATP rankings in 90 minutes of surgical work. Federer will face fifth seed Kei Nishikori next for a spot in the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n Federer won 39 out of the 41 points played with his first serve, a magnificent 95% rate<\/a>. Not a single deuce was reached when it was the Basel native\u2019s turn to initiate play. I counted three times when, at 30-all, Federer fired an ace. Berdych was never close to troubling him.<\/p>\n My hypothesis<\/a> that break point conversion would tilt the matchup one way or the other was somewhat confirmed, thus turning into an empirically proven theory. Well, maybe not proven, but it was certainly accurate.<\/p>\n On the one hand, Federer only generated five break points throughout the match. That\u2019s well short of his 10.25 average in his previous five Grand Slam wins over the hard-hitting Czech.<\/p>\n On the other hand, he capitalized on four of those chances, an astounding 80% conversion rate. In the second and third sets, the four-time Australian Open winner broke his opponent\u2019s serve right off the bat. Federer\u2019s superiority on serve did the rest.<\/p>\n [youtube]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=hHzgkKdEjFc[\/youtube]<\/p>\n Ivanisevic's face after the RF backhand \ud83d\ude44 pic.twitter.com\/Lz9dyRTeKX<\/a><\/p>\n — Patrice Touchard (@PatriceTouchard) January 20, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\nThe Facts<\/h2>\n
Two Far-Fetched Ideas to Explain this Exhibition<\/h2>\n
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