ATP Basel - Federer survives Bellucci test

World no. 1 and five time champion Roger Federer was severely tested in his second round match at the ATP Swiss Indoors in Basel before beating Thomaz Bellucci 6-3, 6-7(6), 7-5 to reach the quarter finals.

The match lasted just over two hours. Federer is now 2-0 lifetime against the Brazilian.

“He’s a good player. He has a good serve, good intensity and good decision making from the baseline,” commented Federer. “It was a close match today and I’m happy I came through. He had many chances on my serve. It was intense. I think he’s got some good power and usually plays well against the better players. I think I struggled on the return. I think I served smart. I played that part really well. I’m not too happy with my returning, but then again, he was a lefty and it was a change. Still, I would have hoped to have done a bit better.”

In other matches, 3rd seed Richard Gasquet beat wild card Marco Chiudinelli 6-1, 6-4 to keep his hopes of making it to the ATP World Tour Finals in London alive.

Grigor Dimitrov beat Julien Benneteau 7-6(5), 6-7(1), 7-6(3) to also reach the quarter finals.

In a first round match, secons eed Juan Martin del Potro beat Alejandro Falla of Colombia 6-4, 6-1. Potro is in line for one of the last 2 spots in London as well. Potro won the Vienna event last week.

Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu beat wild card Henri Laaksonen of Switzerland 6-2, 7-5 to also reach the second round while Australian Marinko Matosevic upset seventh seed Florian Mayer 6-2, 6-3 and Benoit Paire upset 5th seed Andreas Seppi 4-6, 6-2, 6-3.