By Chris Oddo | Thursday March 15, 2018
Roger Federer improved to 16-0 on the season with a straight-sets win over Korea's Hyeon Chung.
Photo Source: Dan Huerlimann/Beelde Images
The sun refuses to set on Roger Federer, even when he plays the night session at the BNP Paribas Open. The Swiss maestro closed singles action on Day 9 at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden by routing Hyeon Chung, 7-5, 6-1, to claim his 16th consecutive win.
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Federer killed two birds with one stone on Wednesday. First, he remained undefeated for the season, matching his longest streak to start a season (2006). Second, he locked up No.1 ranking at least through Miami (which will bring him to a record 308 weeks).
Now the 20-time Grand Slam champion can set his sights on a record 6th BNP Paribas Open. He’ll meet unseeded Borna Coric in the semifinals on Saturday. The quarterfinals on the lower half of the men's singles draw will take place on Friday afternoon at Indian Wells.
The milestones just keep coming.
So does the sublime tennis.
In a rematch of one of this year’s Australian Open semifinals, Federer was challenged early by the 21-year-old Korean, and needed to come up with inspired tennis to weather a mid-match challenge. After storming out to a 3-0 lead, Chung, striking the ball with serious pop, reeled Federer in a bit and got back on serve thanks to a break in the fifth game. But heavy pressure from an engaged Federer would soon cause Chung to falter when serving to stay alive in the set a second time.
The opportunistic Federer continued to hold off the No.23-seed in the second set, but he had to work extremely hard to hold in a first game that saw him save four break points.
That hold would prove crucial for Federer’s psyche, and a deflator for Chung, who was broken in the second game and never really got close to equal footing with Federer again.
All Chung could manage was a hold in the fourth game but Federer expanded the lead to a double-break at 5-1, then promptly served out the match from there, closing affairs in one hour and 23 minutes.
"I'm happy I found a way," Federer said after the match. "You know, started off really well, struggled afterwards, found my game back again and was able to protect it, saving big break points early on in the second set. I think that was the key to the match, those 10, 15 minutes where I broke at the end of the first and then saved break points early in the second."
Federer improved to 9-1 in quarterfinals at the BNP Paribas Open and 61-11 lifetime. He is 67-5 with nine titles since the beginning of 2017 and show no signs of slowing down.