Federer books showdown with Djokovic

Wozniacki cements top spot after beating Schiavone at Australian Open.

MELBOURNE: Roger Federer cruised into his eighth consecutive Australian Open semi-final and booked a showdown with Novak Djokovic after dominating his Swiss teammate Stanislas Wawrinka. It was a no-contest as the all-time Grand Slam champion eased to a 6-1, 6-3, 6-3 win against the misfiring Wawrinka in just one hour and 47 minutes.

Federer extended his winning streak to 15 matches in his record 59th match win at the Australian Open.  The Swiss will now take on Djokovic, who upset him in the semi-finals on the way to winning the 2008 Australian title, tomorrow.

Djokovic has beaten Federer in two Slam semi-finals although the Swiss holds a 13-6 record. “It’s not the only two times he beat me,” said Federer. “He’s a quality player who plays really offensive, he takes it to the opponent. I enjoy playing against him because of the shot-making we are able to create.”

Federer made it look easy

From the outset, Federer was never going to lose and he broke Wawrinka’s serve five times and won a high 72 per cent of his first and 76 per cent of his second serves. Wawrinka earned just one break point.  The 16-time major champion hit 29 winners and dominated the points won 90-66.

Federer broke the misfiring Wawrinka twice in taking the opening set which lasted just 29 minutes. Wawrinka had two break points in the sixth game of the second set but badly missed the next three points to pass up the chance, and then with his confidence down easily gave up his service to hand Federer a break. Wawrinka surrendered the set with his fourth service break with a bad backhand miss.

Wawrinka was given a code violation for racquet abuse when he angrily slammed his racquet into the court and mangled it as he gave up another service break early in the third set. Wawrinka was a shadow of the player who ripped apart Andy Roddick in straight sets earlier, mis-hitting his groundstrokes and failing to put any pressure on Federer.

Meanwhile, Djokovic was outstanding in mastering Czech sixth-seed Tomas Berdych in three intense sets with a 6-1, 7-6 (7/5), 6-1 score-line. Djokovic had to work hard to get past the big-hitting Berdych and once he secured the second set in a tie-breaker it was all downhill from there after which he completed his win in two hours and 32 minutes.

Wozniacki triumphs

World number one Caroline Wozniacki recovered from losing the first set to overcome Italian Francesca Schiavone 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 in the quarter-finals. Two days after beating Svetlana Kuznetsova in the longest women’s match in Grand Slam history, Schiavone showed remarkable powers of recovery but eventually ran out of steam against her younger opponent.

Wozniacki, who is now assured of remaining as number one when the new rankings are published next week, moves into a semi-final against China’s Li Na, who earlier beat German Andrea Petkovic 6-2, 6-4.

“Francesca was playing well, it was tough for me to get the right rhythm, and I was making a few mistakes on the important points,” said Wozniacki of her comeback. “I just thought: ‘Take one ball at time and don’t give up. If you get the chance, you need to take it now, otherwise it’s going to be too late’.”

Roger Federer

“I needed a good performance and I’ve played Stan many times and there were no real secrets out there for either of us. It may have been a battle for him to get used to the conditions.”

Novak Djokovic

“If I continue playing like this and I think I am playing well then I have a good chance, but I have to face Federer now and we all know he’s the best player ever so it’s going to be very tough.”

Published in The Express Tribune, January 26^th, 2011.