Quarter Final day at the Internazioli di Italia

This morning, for my last day, and my last visits I went to the antique part of Rome were there is the Coliseo and all the old ruins, and then the Circo Massimo where it used to have the races. Then I needed to take the metro but unfortunately the station was closed as they were on strike. So I had to walk for about 1 hour to get to the Bus stop for the Foro Italico.

The first match on stage was the expected match between Swiss n°2 Wawrinka and James Blake. The match was very exiting as in the first two set they had to go to the tie-break. They exchanged once their serve in the first serve and twice in the second. Blake won the first breaker 7 pts to 5 and Wawrinka won the second on the same margin. In the deciding set, Wawrinka was imperial on serve with 93% of 1st serve in and 86% pts won on it. He didn't face a single break point while Blake saved only 1 out of 4. It is after 2h30 of a long battle that Wawrinka won 6-7 7-6 6-1.

Federer was trying to add another Swiss player in the Semi final of the Internazioli di Italia. He was playing against Radek Stepanek who won all his previous matches in 3 sets. Federer leads 4-1 in their meetings. Federer made a very good first set wining 100% of the point after his 1st serve. None of the players had a break opportunity and in the tie break, after leading 2-0 Federer lost it 7 points to 4. And very soon he was trailing 3-0. Federer with the help of the public broke back at 2-4. Then we felt that Federer would gain some momentum going to go to a deciding set. But Stepanek broke once again and was soon serving for the match at 5-3. Again with the audience Federer converted his break point at 30-40 and then levelled the match at 5-5 and it went to another tie-break. There Federer had the double mini-break and led 5-2 before Stepanek caught him and tied at 5-5. Federer made a good serve and procured himself a set point but on Stepanek serve, and for few cm he missed his passing shot. At 7-6 Stepanek he saved Match point on his serve, but lost the 2 next points and the match.

In the end everybody was very disappointed by the fact that he didn't played well the important points and even though he won 6 more points than his opponent today, he still lost. It is the second match of the tournament for Stepanek where he wins fewer points than his opponent.

Roddick was trying to reach his second SF here in Rome, he was against Tommy Robredo of Spain. The Spaniard never beat Roddick in their 7 previous encounters. It was no exception today when Roddick saved 3 early break points in the match before taking the first set 6-3, then he lost once his serve and Robredo levelled the match with a 6-4 second set victory. In the Roddick was firing, and he had a point to lead 5-2, but he let Robredo come back and had to win the match 7 points to 4 in the deciding tie-break. With 11 aces, over 2h13 of play and 203 points played, Roddick won one more than Robredo

In the last match of the day, for the night session, Nicolas Almagro was forced to retire due to a wrist injury after Djokovic won the first set 6-1 and was leading 1-0.