ATP 500 Swiss Indoors Final Preview: Roger Federer Clear Favourite as Zverev Crashes out to Copil in Semi Final

On a day Roger Federer produced his most assured performance in quite some time, he also saw the prospect of his winning a 9th Swiss Open title become much brighter with his expected opponent in the final, world number 5 crashing out in the semi-final. The world number 93, the twenty-eight-year-old journey man from Romania, Marius Copil, stands between him and a 99th career title.

The Swiss Maestro was expected to face a tough challenge from the fast-rising Russian Daniil Medvedev in the semi-final. In their most recent encounter at Shanghai Masters, Federer just about managed to scrap through a very close encounter. Medvedev has had a great season and he had looked very impressive coming into this match, after a morale-boosting win against fellow next-gen star Stefanos Tsitsipas.

On the other hand, Federer had continued with his recent patchy form. He was coming off a tough three-setter against Gilles Simon. An upset was not completely unexpected. But what we got instead was possibly Federer’s most assured performance in recent times. He never took his foot off the pedal. Though he got broken once, he broke the Russian four times. The 6-1, 6-4 score-line is a clear reflection of the one-sided nature of the match, though the Russian did show some late resistance.

Before the semi-finals, Federer and Alexander Zverev were the favourites to win their respective matches and play in the final. But world number 5 Alexander Zverev suffered a shocking loss to the world number 93 Marius Copil. He simply struggled against the big-serving Romanian. Zverev could not break Copil even once whereas he got broken twice in the match.

The big-serving Marius Copil is in the biggest final of his Career

So, we now have the final between Federer and Copil which may seem like a David vs. Goliath fight, on paper. But it will be folly on the part of the twenty-time grand slam champion to take Copil lightly. The Romanian has had his best season this year, in which he reached his first ATP tour level final at Sofia Open.

But he has produced the best tennis of his life in this tournament. He had never defeated a top 10 player in his career. And he has defeated two of them, Marin Cilic and Alexander Zverev in this tournament. His current ranking is certainly not reflective of the high level of tennis he is producing this week.

The biggest weapon for Copil has been his booming serve. He dished out as many as 26 aces in the match against Zverev and had served 21 aces against Cilic. It will be very difficult for Federer to break him if he continues to serve this well in the final too. And then it could be anybody’s game in tie-breakers.

But with the 9th Swiss Open title in his sight and the home crowd egging him on, it is expected that Federer will be able to crack the Copil code, something two of his fellow top-10 players failed to do.