2 Jun 2014

Federer sent packing from French Open by reformed Gulbis

4:27 pm on 2 June 2014

Roger Federer's French Open campaign was derailed by reformed tennis playboy Ernests Gulbis when the Swiss star suffered his worst result at Roland Garros since 2004 in a 6-7 7-6 6-2 4-6 6-3 defeat in the fourth round.

The 2009 champion and fourth seed was second-best for most of the match and made an unusually high number of unforced errors - 59 - on the Philippe Chatrier show court to hand the 18th seed from Latvia the biggest win of his career.

Gulbis chased down every shot, struck his groundstrokes with real venom and fully deserved his first grand slam quarter-final place since 2008, also in Paris.

A man who freely admits he wasted his talent since his breakthrough at Roland Garros six years ago, Gulbis said earlier in the week that he was "jumping on the last-chance train" at 25.

He plays Tomas Berdych of Czech Republic in the last eight after the sixth seed beat American John Isner in straight sets.