Stunner in Shanghai

Gilles Simon def. Roger Federer, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3. This was the headline that greeted me this afternoon as I surfed the sports-related news of the day.

I got home and watched this match anyway to see what exactly happened to Federer. ESPN gave up coverage of this tournament, along with two other major tournaments in the spring, to get coverage of the US Open, and we're now paying the price. Tennis Channel hasn't ponied up for this event (yet), so we're stuck with Fox Sports Net. FSN did the coverage for Indian Wells and Key Biscayne and did such a poor job that it was with much trepidation that I clicked through my DVR and hit "play" for the ATP Masters Series.

Justin Gimelstob is back commentating, somewhat surprising since his recent controversy had wiped him from the tennis landscape. His partner in the booth though was Leif Shiras, of whom I'm a fan, and a big improvement from the n00bifier they trotted out before, Barry Tompkins. Gimelstob has an irritating habit of repeating himself word for word and is still prone to talking too much, but he's improved as a commentator. He's cut back on the over-the-top exclamations, and eased up on the predictions that often left him eating crow.

But let's get to the match. Hewitt part deux, I mean, Gilles Simon, is a classic counterpuncher who hits a relatively flat ball, and has exceptional foot speed. The first time they met, Federer was coming off the long layoff after Wimbledon, with question marks about how he would handle the crushing defeat by Nadal. This time around, Federer had been out for 10 days, and there was uncertainty about whether a back injury would flare up. Back in August Federer won the first set, then went down in a flurry of forehand errors in sets two and three. What a bit of foreshadowing that turned out to be. This time, Federer came out with a very specific gameplan; stay aggressive on the forehand, change the height of the ball by throwing in some heavy topspin, and slice the backhand short crosscourt to bring Gilles up to the forecourt where he is less comfortable.

Federer took the first set on the strength of that short slice, despite some scratchy serving. Simon looked confused as to how to reply to that shot, awkwardly dumping it into the net, or following it in only to get passed by Fed. The times he did get his racket on the volley he made an absolute mess of it. It was not unlike this guy I played this past weekend. We were looking for a 4th for a Saturday morning doubles match, and Dan pulled in this unknown guy. As we were warming up I was impressed; the guy had some decent groundstrokes. Then he came to the net to warm-up and I found out that he couldn't volley to save his life. At all. It was literally an auto-point every time someone hit the ball at him at net in the match. Federer saved the one break point he faced and took it 6-4, and I wondered what was going to make the tide change in this match.

In the second set Federer broke early to go up 2-1, and I started to get really confused as to how he lost this match. Simon quickly broke back to level though, and that was key. The errors started to creep in on Federer, especially on the forehand side, but I was ok with that. Against a player like Simon you need to stay aggressive, and Federer bailed himself out of trouble with some timely first serves. Halfway through the set, Gimelstob astutely noticed a shift in the pattern of play; Simon was becoming the aggressor. His go-to play was to serve out wide in the deuce court, then step in to take the next ball early and drive it into the open court. Federer also stopped slicing the ball short; he kept slicing it, but he floated it deep to Simon's backhand, which was less effective. Federer got into trouble serving at 3-4 but pulled through. He fell behind again at 4-5 and this time wasn't so lucky. Simon broke him and we headed to the 3rd set!

On the changeover Federer seemed to dwell on his forehand misses. Simon served to open the 3rd and Federer smoked some forehands, losing the game in a flurry of errors. Simon impressed me with his intelligence on court. He's a bigger hitter than I initially gave him credit for; the ATP's site illogically doesn't post the winners to errors but he did hit a good share of winners against Federer, and also out-aced him. Simon is not known as a power player, but he did an excellent job of recognizing when Federer started to just rally with the forehand, looking to get back into a groove. Simon stepped around and cracked a few winners off those shots, and kept Federer from getting comfortable again on the forehand. At 2-3, Federer went down 0-40 and I thought "this is it!", but Federer took it to another level, somehow bearing down on the forehand and reeling off 8 straight points to hold and then go up 0-40 on Simon's serve! At this point I was a believer, sure that the Internet reports had all been wrong and that Federer was going to win this thing right now. My notes from this section read: first point, Federer chip and charges, Simon hits an inside in forehand down the line pass. Ace. Rally for a while, finished by a Federer forehand miss (badly). Federer chip and charges again, Simon lob, on the line! Rally, another bad forehand miss from Federer. With those two misses, Federer lost the range on his forehand and continued to misfire. Simon broke and served out the match in style, firing an ace up the T on match point.

Andy Murray took out Andy Roddick, so Federer will need to win out from here in order to have a shot at progressing from the round robin stage. He'll also need Murray to lose to Simon (a big ask) so as to not have the losing head to head if it comes to a tiebreaker. Less than ideal, to be sure, but remember, this is exactly what happened last year, as Federer lost the first match to Fernando Gonzalez before going on to win the whole shebang.

Tomorrow: Tsonga vs. del Potro and Djokovic vs. Davydenko. Looks like FSN coverage is 2-6pm everyday, if you can find it. Good luck.