Roger Federer rarely plays ATP 250 events.  Most of the times, he does it because it’s a tuneup for a major.  He might play, Doha, for instance, just before the Australian Open.  He might play Estoril, a few weeks before the French Open.  He might play Halle, just before Wimbledon.

Roger Federer is the top seed playing Stockholm, an ATP 250 event.  Perhaps his sense of history pushed him to enter.  He was closing in on 900 victories.  One of his earliest coaches was Peter Lundgren, a Swede.  One of his role models was Stefan Edberg.  Indeed, Switzerland and Sweden often get confused by those who hail from neither benevolent countries.

The last time Roger Federer played Stockholm was 2000.  Back then, the calendar ran wild.  Tennis was played nearly every month of the year.  If players complain that tennis is played until just before American Thanksgiving (it ends around Halloween for the women, which is the end of October), Federer played Stockholm on November 20.  Currently, the ATP World Tour Finals would be held around then.  Only one event is played after that: the Davis Cup finals.  There is often talk of shrinking the calendar 2-3 weeks, cramming a few more tournaments together so players might finish, say, in the first week of November, instead of the third week.  This would give all players two months off, a small off-season, but one nevertheless.

Federer, of course, received a bye in the first round, and didn’t face his first opponent until the second round.  Federer hadn’t played Stockholm since 2000, so he has a dubious record.  He’s never gone past the 2nd round.  With big-serving Taylor Dent, he had plenty of chances to get to the quarterfinals, which he did comfortably.  Dent, who has one of the biggest serves in the games, admits one of his huge weaknesses, one that prevents him from even playing good doubles, is his return of serve.  The Bryan brothers, accomplished as they are at doubles, have been successful because they return well.  Federer had a comfortable win.

Then, Federer played his compatriot, Stanislas Wawrinka.  Wawa had a nice 6-2 first set win, but couldn’t overcome the Swiss maestro, and lost in 3 sets.

The other top contenders have fallen by the wayside.  As the lone top-ranked Swede, Robin Soderling has not played all that well since the US Open, and he lost in his home tournament to Florian Mayer in the quarterfinals.

Tomas Berdych continues his indifferent play and he lost as well to Jarkko Nieminen, who seems to be having a pretty good post-US Open run.  Nieminen beat James Blake in the following round, rather handily, but given Blake’s recent woes, reaching the Stockholm quarterfinals has to be considered a good week for the American veteran.

The semifinals pits Jarkko Nieminen against German, Florian Mayer, who has also played well in recent weeks.  The other semi is the high powered Roger Federer against the veteran, Ivan Ljubicic.  Ljubicic played well to win Indian Wells earlier this year, but has also played well the last few weeks.  It always seems a handful of lower-ranked players finds a bit of a hot streak after the US Open.  They may not win any tournaments, but they make reasonably deep runs, and at that level, that’s all one can reasonably hope for.

Roger Federer would be favored to win over Ljubicic and of course, whoever he might face in the finals.  His form seems better than around the French when he lost to Hewitt at Halle and to Montanes at Estoril.  So the thought of an upset seems pretty remote and Federer is likely to claim his third title of the year and tie Pete Sampras for 64 titles, thus claiming two milestones in the same tournament (the 900th win being the other).  He also has his 50th win of the season, marking a general excellence (50 wins is generally a good win figure for top players, though certainly not outstanding).  Federer figures he’ll break 1000 in 2 years time.