In spite of being all stuffed up with a cold this week as well as beginning his conquest in Shanghai with a very late night, Roger Federer is through to his 11th semifinal of the year, to play world #1 Novak Djokovic.
It started out with a rather perilous match against Leonardo Mayer, who was playing some sublime tennis. Roger had five match points against him and would have been out on the first one if a lucky net cord had gone the other way. But he managed to save all of them, some in a very topsy-turvy tiebreak that would challenge any Fed fan's nerves. Since then his form has gotten progressively better. In his 3rd round match against Batista Agut he was certainly tested, but came through in straight sets.
His quarterfinal match against old foe Benneteau, who has given Roger and his fans some headaches in the past, proved to be a treat with some spectacular points on both sides. Until the last couple points in the tiebreak in the first set it was impossible to tell who was going to come out on top, with Benneteau giving all that he had as he usually does against Roger. That seemed to be all he had left, however, as the second set went very quickly with Roger serving up a bagel to close things out.
Roger has once again had to play all late evening matches in Shanghai. Thankfully, however, his semifinal against Djokovic will also be at this same time, as I'm sure conditions are fairly different in the daytime. I won't even venture a prediction on how this match will go, but either way Roger has continued to play amazingly this year and fully deserves the place he will go to at the beginning of next week, back to #2 in the world.
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