Roger Federer back from the brink at U.S. Open, to face Cilic in semifinals

Written by: Staff on 5th September 2014

Roger Federer back from the brink at U.S. Open, to face Cilic in semifinals |

By Ricky Dimon

Roger Federer does not have many “firsts” to achieve at this point in his illustrious career, but he achieved one on Thursday night in the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open. For the first time ever at a Grand Slam, Federer saved a match point–two, in this case–and went on to win. The 33-year-old Swiss overcame Gael Monfils 4-6, 3-6, 6-4, 7-5, 6-2 after fighting off two match points at 4-5 in the fourth set.

“It’s just unbelievable to win matches like this at slams,” Federer assured. “I have won other big ones in other places. But over best of five, saving match points against Gael in an atmosphere that it was out here tonight, it’s definitely very special. Mentally I’m not ever going to go away. Physically I was right there. I felt great in the fifth against (Novak) Djokovic (in the Wimbledon final) and great in the fifth against Monfils. I’m happy tonight it paid off.”

“I need a bit of time to forget this,” Monfils admitted. “But it [gives] me more motivation. I played good. I think it’s very positive.”

Next up for Federer is Marin Cilic, who cruised past Tomas Berdych 6-2, 6-4, 7-6(4) in two hours and 12 minutes. Cilic booked a spot in his second career major semifinal (2010 Australian Open) after hitting 46 winners to Berdych’s 21 and converting five of eight break points.

“It was a great performance today, I would say,” Cilic assessed. “The opening of the match went in my side; that sort of relaxed me a bit more. I felt that I (was) in a good driving seat and that Tomas was all the time catching me and I was serving good in the right moments. It feels great to be in the semis (for the) first time after three tries in quarterfinals. (I) lost both times to eventual winners. Just feels great to be here.”

“I [started] pretty terribly,” Berdych lamented. “It was not the way to start the match like that. Then obviously (it) was really tough to catch up. And really my serve was off. Basically, when you have a game built on a serve then it’s really tough and difficult to reschedule it and do it a bit differently. Yeah, today was definitely not the day I [wanted] to have. Yeah, that’s it. That’s tennis.”

Ricky contributes to 10sballs.com and also maintains his own tennis website, The Grandstand.

Topics: Federer, Gael Monfils, Marin Cilic, Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Sports, Tennis News, US Open, US Open tennis news

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10sBalls_com says:

September 5, 2014 at 12:18 am

@rogerfederer back from the brink at @usopen to face @cilic_marin in semifinals- http://t.co/vo6zG2j16z @RD_Tennistalk @FedererNews #Federer