Federer wins Olympic gold

Federer wins gold with compatriot Wawrinka

Doubles gold, that is. But still a gold medal. In fact, watching this match made me realize what a potent doubles team the two top 10 Swiss make. They took out the #1 doubles team in the world, the Bryan Brothers, in the semifinal, and go on to defeat Sweden's Simon Aspelin (doubles specialist) and Thomas Johansson in the gold medal match. 

Match breakdown

They take the first set 6-3 without much trouble as the serving firepower of Federer and potent forehands of both players give them an early break which they ride out to the end. In the second set, they immediately go up a break and then get a couple tense deuce points on both Wawrinka (at 2-1) and Federer's service games (at 3-2). But their game plan takes them through. On one ad-out point in particular, Federer sets up the I-formation and blisters an ace down the tee. This was following a barrage of servers to Aspelin's forehand, which made him expect a change-up to the backhand, causing him to guess completely wrong on Roger's bomb down the center line.

The match proceeded in similar fashion for the second set, with the exception that Aspelin was starting to get a mean read on Roger's serve. This brought them to a tiebreaker, which they hung tight with until Roger blew a couple down the T. The third set was fairly routine,  with Federer and Wawrinka closing out the doubles final to take Olympic gold for Switzerland.

On the podium

As the medal celebration took place, you could see the Bryan brothers smiling as they accept the bronze (although we're willing to bet they would be smiling even more if it was gold), Johansson and Aspelin graciously accepting the silver, and Federer and Wawrinka ecstatic about winning their gold. Believe it or not, Federer had partaken in three Olympics, and this is the first time he got a medal. In Athens in 2004 he fell to Thomas Berdych in the quarterfinal (whom he made a point to take apart this time, which he did, before running into a fired up James Blake in the quarters). At the time of this writing, Federer and Wawrinka have given Switzerland it's only two gold medals.