By Robert Martin                    Photo Credit: Natasha Peterson / Corleve

(September 3, 2011) For three sets, 27th-seeded Marin Cilic took the offense to World No. 3 Roger Federer and pushed him to the brink, but the Swiss Maestro would not be deterred from an eventual 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 victory.

By far the best match that Cilic has ever played against Federer, the Croat used his aggressive groundstrokes to push his opponent around at times. Racking up 40 winners along the way, Cilic was just too inconsistent to beat Federer on this day.

In gusting wind conditions, Federer took advantage of his low-bouncing slice backhand to frustrate Cilic on the forehand side, causing a number of his 44 errors. Cilic approached his third career match with Federer knowing that he needed to play aggressively to keep Federer’s versatility at bay.

Despite the windy conditions that historically have given Federer trouble, he played a clean match, hitting 31 winners to only 24 errors. This is attributed to his successful and frequent use of the slice backhand, the side that is known to be problematic.

When asked about the conditions, Federer commented, "Yeah, it was tricky. First came from the left, then from the right, and then from the back. So it took some adjustments to do, but I think I handled it well." The win means that Federer has reached at least the fourth round in the last 30 grand slam events, with 21 of those resulting in a trip to the final.

In other action, the marquee matchup between No. 9 Tomas Berdych and No. 20 Janko Tipsarevic was cut short when Berdych retired while trailing 4-6, 0-5. At the end of the first set, Berdych called the trainer to check on his right shoulder, the same injury that forced him out of Cincinnati two weeks ago.

When asked about the injury after the match, Berdych said, “I don't even know what it means, so I don't know. Actually, it's a pain in my right shoulder.” The win means that Tipsarevic will improve to a perfect 3-0 against Berdych in ATP level events.

The lingering concern for Berdych centers around how long it will take to fully recover from this injury, who stated, “No idea. I mean, I hope it's not gonna be long, but, you know, everything's gonna take some time. I don't want to definitely not go too early on court that it's gonna come back again.”

Also increasing the record number of retirements at this year’s US Open was 31st-seeded Marcel Granollers, who retired while trailing 1-6, 3-4. Granollers was clearly struggling, though the extent of his injury remains unknown.

The beneficiary of the injury is exhausted Juan Carlos Ferrero who admitted, “Obviously I felt yesterday very tired, of course. Today I was a little bit better, but still, you know, very tired in all my body.”

For full audio of Roger Federer's interview, click below.