Federer 1 Away from 100 Career Titles

Roger Federer claimed victory in the Swiss Indoors in Basel to move on to 99 career tournament wins. Federer is now just one win short of becoming the second man in history to reach a century of career tournament wins, following in the footsteps of Jimmy Connors who won 109 tour-level events.

Federer was looking to extend his winning streak in Basel to 20 straight wins, and he was the heavy favourite as he faced surprise finalist Marius Copil. The Romanian was ranked number 93 in the world but has shown incredible form this week, taking his first two victories against top ten ranked opponents in Marin Cilic and Alexander Zverev.

It was Copil who started the better, appearing not to suffer from the nerves that should accompany such a huge final, as he took an early break of serve. At 37 years of age, however, Federer is not one to panic, and he calmly fought his way back to take the first set to a tie-break.

Copil had made the final here in Basel off the back of some big serving though, and so, it was still finely balanced as the game moved into a tense tiebreak. However, it was the mighty Swiss who came out on top, showing all of his experience to take the tie-break 7-5, and put himself firmly on the road to his 9th title in Basel.

Copil clearly had not read the script though, and once again he took an early break to lead the second set 4-1. At this point it looked like the Swiss crowd would have a third set to look forward to, but Federer all of a sudden kicked out of his slumber and mounted a dazzling comeback to claim victory 7-6 6-4.

For Federer, the joy of winning his home title was added to by the knowledge that he is creeping towards that incredible feat of 100 tour-level titles, something that must surely be high up on his list of goals.

He completely deserved this title and showed his class in beating a tricky opponent that has beaten a number of top players in this tournament. While big names slipped up to lower ranked opposition throughout the tournament, Federer kept his head and kept on winning, and was justly rewarded.

On the other side of the court, Marius Copil must be highly commended too. The Romanian was playing to keep himself in the top 100 in the world but instead will find himself around 60 in the world when he wakes up on Monday. Copil took home a mighty 300 ranking points and a little bonus of €209,715! Not bad for a week’s work!

While the tennis is over in Basel, things only get better as we look forward to the Masters 1000 in Paris next week. The big three, Nadal, Djokovic and Federer are all in action in Paris before the top players aged 21 and under move onto the Next Gen finals in Milan, and then the hotly anticipated Tour Finals in London.