{"id":288329,"date":"2025-07-24T16:25:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T16:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/288329\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T16:25:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T16:25:12","slug":"who-roger-federer-beat-on-his-way-to-winning-the-2015-cincinnati-open-which-he-called-the-perfect-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/288329\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Roger Federer beat on his way to winning the 2015 Cincinnati Open which he called the \u2018perfect tournament\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Roger Federer is, in many people\u2019s eyes, the greatest tennis player of all time.<\/strong><\/p>\n

After all, whilst he does not hold all the records, and has not won every single title available, what he did on a tennis court has captured the imagination unlike any player in history seemingly ever has.<\/p>\n

He blended a remarkable work ethic with unrivalled elegance, making the magnificent look impossibly easy.<\/p>\n

As such, people often mistook his relaxed state for a lack of effort.<\/p>\n

His full career should prove that it was anything but.<\/p>\n

\"RogerPhoto by Rob Carr\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Across his glittering 24-year period of professional tennis, he enjoyed countless historic triumphs at some of the sport\u2019s biggest events.<\/p>\n

And yet, arguably his one true \u2018perfect\u2019 tournament came in Cincinnati, exactly ten years ago. <\/p>\n

Roger Federer\u2019s \u2018perfect\u2019 Cincinnati run<\/strong><\/p>\n

Heading into the 2015 edition of this event, it had actually been an uncharacteristically underperforming year for the Swiss superstar, who admittedly was now 34 years old.<\/p>\n

After all, he was without a Grand Slam title, having failed to even reach the fourth round in Melbourne before exiting in the quarter-finals at Roland Garros.<\/p>\n

There had been some impressive runs, but he was thwarted in the final of Indian Wells, Madrid and Wimbledon by Novak Djokovic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He was not to be denied in Cincinnati though, which marked his only tournament in preparation for the 2015 US Open.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Roger Federer<\/a> cruised into the semi-final, with routine victories over Roberto Bautista-Agut, Kevin Anderson and Feliciano L\u00f3pez, but then faced Andy Murray, the number two-ranked player in the world.<\/p>\n

He beat the Scotsman in two tight sets, before then avenging his many losses to Djokovic in the final, winning the title without having dropped a single set.<\/p>\n

Speaking after, he admitted: \u201cOh, yeah, this is the perfect tournament. I don\u2019t think I got broken all week. Like you said, I didn\u2019t drop a set.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s almost ironic given the fiery nature of this pair\u2019s competition to compare Federer and Djokovic\u2019s rivalry with Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner\u2019s<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Roger Federer was the king of the American hard courts<\/strong><\/p>\n

Frustratingly, Federer would then go on to lose yet another final to his Serbian nemesis in New York, once again thwarted by Djokovic on the biggest stage.<\/p>\n

And yet, the 43-year-old remains the undisputed king of the American hard courts, with only Pete Sampras and Jimmy Connors able to match his five titles at the US Open.<\/p>\n

However, that merely scratches the surface of Federer\u2019s brilliance during this period of the year, as the record-holder at Cincinnati for most titles won (seven).<\/p>\n\nYear<\/strong><\/td>\nPlayer beaten in final<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2005<\/td>\nAndy Roddick<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2007<\/td>\nJames Blake<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2009<\/td>\nNovak Djokovic<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2010<\/td>\nMardy Fish<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2012<\/td>\nNovak Djokovic<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2014<\/td>\nDavid Ferrer<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2015<\/td>\nNovak Djokovic<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

All of Roger Federer\u2019s Cincinnati Open titles<\/p>\n

He remains the only man ever to have won the US Masters\u2019 hard-court treble, as the winner of Indian Wells, Miami and the Cincinnati Masters tournaments all in 2005.<\/p>\n

And, he has actually twice completed a perfect tournament at the latter event too, winning the title without dropping a single set.<\/p>\n

Whilst Federer is synonymous with grass, as the greatest male champion in Wimbledon history, he was also a serious, legendary threat in the portion of the season that succeeded his usual triumph at the All-England Club.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Roger Federer is, in many people\u2019s eyes, the greatest tennis player of all time. After all, whilst he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[107663,13325,79,1068,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-288329","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-cincinnati-open","9":"tag-roger-federer","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114909146679417322","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}