February 4, 2025

Open Court

MORE TENNIS THAN YOU'LL EVER NEED

MELBOURNE, Australia – Roger Federer has been pretty much untroubled and unruffled so far in this Australian Open.

Through three matches, he has beaten the Slovene-turned Brit-turned Slovene Aljaz Bedene. Then he got through the German, Jan-Lennard Struff. And then he matched one-handed backhands with France’s Richard Gasquet and came out on top.

None of the nine sets were blowouts. But Federer won all nine of them.

If you’d told the defending champion that, from a section of the draw that originally contained Milos Raonic and Sam Querrey, his fourth-round opponent would be Hungary’s Marton Fucsovics, he would take it in a heartbeat.

On Sunday afternoon, Federer had a hit with one of his fellow 30-somethings, Stéphane Robert of France, 

It lasted 45 minutes – at most. Federer then spent about 15 minutes signing autographs and posing for selfies.

Novak Djokovic was hitting right next door. And so the camera crews (and ESPN women Pam Shriver and Chris McKendry) went back and forth with the significant star power concentrated in the same place.

Here’s what it looked like.

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