BASEL, October 27, 2019
Roger Federer claimed a 10th title at the Swiss Indoors Basel with a 6-2, 6-2 victory over wild card entry Alex de Minaur of Australia in Sunday’s singles final.
The top seed of the ATP 500 event didn’t face a break point and converted four of his own 10 chances to prevail after one hour and eight minutes.
Roger that! 🙌
The moment @rogerfederer claimed his record 🔟th Basel 🏆. #SwissIndoorsBasel pic.twitter.com/Qgw4tQOYZC
— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) October 27, 2019
“You saw it hit me again hard winning here in Basel. I don’t take these tournament victories as a normal thing. I take them as something quite unique and special, even though it’s been a lot by now,” Federer said, quoted by the ATP Tour website. “Every one has a different flavour and I try to enjoy them as much as I can in the moment.”
The Swiss maestro is now just six titles from Jimmy Connors’ all-time mark of 109 tour-level titles.
“Back in the day when you lifted a trophy as a junior you’re like, ‘Ahh, let’s just pretend to be one of the big guys.’ But you clearly know you’re not. Now when you’re able to do it in a stadium with people chanting your name or celebrating you or your tennis, it’s a wonderful feeling,” said Federer, who is now 75-9 at Basel and claimed his fourth title of the season. “There you probably have a couple of parents around and one photographer who happened to be there at the time. So clearly things have changed. Luckily there were some photographers at the time, because it was more of a luxury to have a camera at the time. It’s been an incredible journey. It’s definitely very different today.”
Rojer/Tecau clinch doubles title
Earlier in the day, Jean-Julien Rojer from the Netherlands and Horia Tecau of Romania took the doubles title. The No. 4 seeds defeated the all-US-American tandem Taylor Fritz and Reilly Opelka 7-5, 6-3 in one hour and nine minutes.
“It is special. We have been coming here for a few years and we enjoyed being here, but we never got to a final here. I made the semis twice, so it was really special to play the first final here and get the title,” said Tecau. “Being the 20th, I didn’t know until after the final but it will be a special place in our memories.”
Rojer added: “We just had to stay focussed and really try to hold our serves so we could maintain some pressure while they were serving… The key to the match was to be very solid and sharp on our serves and I think we managed to do that today.”
