Sunday Food

Federer steps up the pace to crush Ferrero

(China Daily)
Updated: 2007-07-07 07:23

LONDON: Roger Federer woke up after a sleepy spell to overcome Juan Carlos Ferrero 7-6, 3-6, 6-1, 6-3 on Friday and reach the semi-finals at Wimbledon where he is aiming for a fifth successive title.

Federer stormed to a 5-2 lead in the first set but the Spaniard clawed back to 5-5 before play was abandoned on Thursday because of rain.

The world No 1, whose last match was a week ago, squandered a set point in the 12th but made no such mistake in the tiebreak which he took 7-2 with an ace on the final point.

Some uncharacteristic forehand errors from the Swiss gave Ferrero a break in the eighth game of the next set and the former world number one took the set on his second set point when Federer's return went long.

It seemed to be the shock that the top seed needed and he launched a barrage of winners to take the third set in a 19 minutes.

Federer secured a break in the third game of the fourth set and in the end thumped a crosscourt forehand winner to extend his record of successive grand slam semi-final appearances to 13.

Elsewhere, Rafael Nadal was back to his best, playing at Wimbledon for the fifth consecutive day and reaching the semifinals by beating No 7 Tomas Berdych 7-6 (1), 6-4, 6-2.

Nadal, last year's runner-up, was broken once early in the first set, but never faced any serious challenges after that. He broke the Czech in the opening games of the second and third sets.

Nadal had his first match point on Berdych's serve at 5-1 in the third set, but the Czech erased it with an ace. Nadal wasted another in the next game, but won when Berdych sent a forehand into the net.

"I had to concentrate with the movement because the ball was very difficult to touch," Nadal said. "Today was very tough with the wind, but anyway I played very good."

The second-seeded Spaniard was stretched to five sets in the previous two rounds, with the former being played over a span of three days at the All England Club.

Earlier on Friday, Chinese players ended their Wimbledon trips. Peng Shuai and Yan Zi, pairing for the first time in Grand Slam event, lost to Alicia Molik and Mara Santangelo in quarter-finals while Sun Tiantian, who teamed up with Elena Likhovtseva, bowed to Katarina Srebotnik and Ai Sugiyama.

Agencies

(China Daily 07/07/2007 page12)