Back to beating Robin Soderling, and back to being a Grand Slam semifinalist — two things he used to do with such regularity.Treating the whipping wind and his familiar foe as only slight nuisances, 16-time Grand Slam champion Federer served his way to a convincing 6-4, 6-4, 7-5 victory over the fifth-seeded Soderling in the U.S. Open quarterfinals Wednesday night.
Federer had an 18-2 edge in aces against the big-hitting Soderling, mixing speed with pinpoint placement that kept the Swede guessing.
"I've been practicing my serve a whole lot, for my whole career. If I can't serve in the wind, I've got a problem, you know?" Federer said. "You could probably wake me up at 2 in the morning, or 4 in the morning, and I could hit a few serves."
The victory improved his career mark against Soderling to 13-1. The lone loss was in their previous match, in this year's French Open quarterfinals. Soderling's victory there ended Federer's streak of reaching the semifinals at a record 23 consecutive major tournaments.
Federer then lost in the quarterfinals at Wimbledon, too, prompting some to question whether his best days were behind him. But now, a month after his 29th birthday, he is back in the semifinals at a Grand Slam tournament — one that he has won five times.
Federer has won 45 of his last 46 matches in Flushing Meadows, the one exception the 2009 final against Juan Martin del Potro.
Federer will meet third-seeded Novak Djokovic in the semifinals for the third U.S. Open in a row. It's also the fourth consecutive year they'll play each other in New York, dating to the 2007 final, and Federer is 4-0 in those matches.
"You never know what's going to happen," 2008 Australian Open champion Djokovic said after beating 17th-seeded Gael Monfils of France 7-6 (7-2), 6-1, 6-2 earlier Wednesday. "I don't want to think about those losses in the last three years, which were really, really close."
All of the day's matches were filled with wind that gusted at up to 30 mph, sending all sorts of debris — brown napkins; plastic bags; players' towels — rolling on the court like tumbleweed, forcing points to be stopped and repeatedly making players catch their ball tosses.
About a half-dozen lets were called during top-seeded Caroline Wozniacki's 6-2, 7-5 victory over 45th-ranked Dominika Cibulkova in the last women's quarterfinal.
"This felt like playing in a hurricane or something," said Wozniacki, who is 19-1 since Wimbledon and has won her past 13 matches.
In Friday's semifinals, the 2009 U.S. Open runner-up will face 2010 Wimbledon runner-up Vera Zvonareva, who defeated 31st-seeded Kaia Kanepi of Estonia 6-3, 7-5 in Wednesday's first singles match.
A year ago in New York, during a fourth-round loss, Zvonareva wasted six match points and threw a tantrum right there on court. She bawled. She slammed her racket against her leg. She begged the chair umpire to get her a pair of scissors so she could cut tape off her knees.
And Wednesday? No. 7 Zvonareva was calm and composed, letting Kanepi make mistake after mistake, 60 unforced errors in all. Zvonareva finished with only 28.
"Yeah, it was blowing in every way," Kanepi said after falling to 0-3 in major quarterfinals.
Neither afternoon match featured much drama — nor doubt about who would win. In sum, they felt akin to opening acts before Wednesday's featured performers took the stage under the lights.
First came Wozniacki-Cibulkova, with Donald Trump in attendance, his hair getting mussed by the wind.
"He called my agent and asked if there was going to be a space in my box," said Wozniacki, who made only 18 unforced errors, 25 fewer than Cibulkova. "I said, 'Of course, there's always a place for Mr. Trump.' "
Trump stuck around for the main event: Federer vs. Soderling, a matchup made so much more intriguing by what happened the last time they squared off. That was on a dreary, rainy day in Paris, and the 6-foot-4 Soderling — he's 3 inches taller than Federer — used his strong forehand and serve to great effect, driving winners through the thick weather and pounding 14 aces.
On Wednesday, in contrast, Soderling didn't hit his first ace of the evening until the 143rd point of the match, nearly an hour in, earning a smattering of sarcastic cheers from some fans in the sellout crowd of 23,718. By that time, Federer already had 15 aces, including three in a row in one game.
The fast-moving air affected shots, pushing behind a player's back at one end of the court, and blowing into his face at the other. How big a deal was it? Instead of opting to serve when he won the prematch coin toss, Federer selected which side of the court he wanted to start on, choosing to have the wind behind him for the first game.
Soderling chose to serve first, against the wind, and when they switched sides after that game, he earned three break points. But Federer saved each of them, the last with an ace at 120 mph, and held to 1-all. Soderling appeared to get rattled in that game on the first break point, when Federer challenged a call and got it overturned on replay review. Soderling wanted the point replayed, but the chair umpire awarded the point to Federer. Soderling argued, to no avail.
Soderling got a fourth break chance in the sixth game, but let that slide by pushing a forehand long. From there, Federer won the next 15 consecutive points on his serve, including 10 in a row in which Soderling didn't even manage to put the ball in play with a return.
At 3-all, 30-15, Soderling blinked first. He missed a backhand, then a forehand, giving Federer his first break opportunity. And Federer made good with a fantastic drop shot that simply died on the court, ending a 12-stroke point and making it 4-3.
After an early trade of service breaks in the second set, Soderling again had a lapse at 2-all. Ahead 40-love on his serve, he badly missed what should have been an easy overhead, putting it in the net. He lost the next five points to get broken — and was never again in that set.Soderling appeared to get himself back into the match by breaking for a 5-3 lead in the third set when Federer sailed an inside-out forehand wide on a 13-stroke exchange. The intrigue there lasted for all of a minute or so, because Federer broke right back to 5-4, helped by three consecutive errant forehands by Soderling.
At 5-all, Federer used the wind in his favor, taking a strong forehand approach shot by Soderling and hitting a hard, slice backhand lob. The shot curled over Soderling and floated down near the baseline. Soderling got there, but his forehand went long.
That helped Federer get two more break points, and he converted the second when Soderling yanked a backhand wide.
All that was left for Federer to do was serve out the victory, which he did, finishing, appropriately, with an ace.
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