Grand Slam record-holder Roger Federer earned another showdown with defending champion Novak Djokovic by outplaying Lukas Rosol 6-2, 6-2 to reach the semi-finals of the Dubai Open on Thursday.
The mood of Federer’s success against the Czech, who famously ousted Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon in 2012, was in sharp contrast with his desperate recovery from within sight of defeat against Radek Stepanek on Wednesday.
“If you want to just analyze it within like 10 seconds, I think that’s what it was. I don’t [usually] break somebody eight times and almost lose the match,” Federer said, referring to his slide almost to 0-3 down in the final set against Stepanek.
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“So I definitely didn’t hit my spots as well, as today on my serve. I maybe could argue that Radek is a better return player than Rosol and all these things, but still I did serve much more clutch today when I needed to,” he added.
Federer did go 0-2 down at the beginning of Thursday’s quarter-final, but hurtled through the next six games, striking the ball beautifully.
Federer leads Djokovic 16-15 in their head-to-head record, but has lost their past three matches.
Earlier, Djokovic advanced to the semi-finals more quickly than he would have wished when his opponent, Mikhail Youzhny, was taken ill and withdrew.
The sixth-seeded Russian has twice reached the final in Dubai and might have provided a good test for the champion, and he would certainly have preferred to experience that.
Returning to the tour more than five weeks after the loss of his Australian Open title, Djokovic’s greatest need is match practice.
Instead, he approaches his encounter with Federer with little more than two hours court time altogether.
Tomas Berdych increased his chances of reaching the final for a second year in a row when he overcame Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and some painful sun cream to post a resolutely taken 6-4, 6-3 win.
The third-seeded Czech hit with solidity in the second set, when confronted with four break points against him in the third game and one more in the seventh — although his burning back seemed almost as great an obstacle.
“It wasn’t sunburn, it was a wrong application of cream,” he said with doleful humor. “I didn’t expect to die by burning. For the first four games I was on fire — not on the court, but on my back. So I am glad the physio helped me and I survived it.”
Berdych, who has now won 14 of his past 15 matches, next has to survive a semi-final with Philipp Kohlschreiber, the seventh-seeded German, whose tidily aggressive performance ousted Malek Jaziri, the surprise survivor from Tunisia, by 6-2, 6-3.
BRAZIL OPEN
AP, SAO PAULO
Wild card Thomaz Bellucci continued to feed off his home crowd on Thursday, beating Austria’s Andreas Haider-Maurer 7-6 (7/4), 5-7, 6-3 to reach the quarter-finals of the Brazil Open.
Bellucci broke Haider-Maurer’s serve early in the third set and held on to close the match in 2 hours, 36 minutes at the Ibirapuera Arena.
Bellucci, ranked 108th, is now to play Martin Klizan of Slovakia, who upset third-seeded Marcel Granollers of Spain 6-4, 6-3.
Fourth-seeded Juan Monaco of Argentina reached the quarter-finals with a marathon 7-6 (7/2), 2-6, 7-5 victory over Albert Ramos of Spain in nearly three hours. He will face Paolo Lorenzi of Italy, who cruised past Brazilian qualifier Rogerio Dutra Silva 6-4, 6-3.
Top-seeded Tommy Haas was to play his quarter-final match against Horacio Zeballos yesterday.
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Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
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