Australian semis set
Men’s, women’s semifinals set as familiar pairs renew old rivalries
Halep, Muguruza win to advance to Australian Open semifinals.
MELBOURNE, Australia — Roger Federer was not going to go gently, of course, no matter how daunting the number of match points — his opponent accumulated seven! — no matter how achy his 38-year-old legs, no matter how slow his serves, no matter how off-target his groundstrokes.
Federer still plays for the love of these stages and circumstances. Still yearns for more trophies, too. Down to his very last gasp, time and again, against someone a decade younger, 100thranked Tennys Sandgren of the United States, Federer somehow pulled off a memorable comeback to reach the Australian Open semifinals for the 15th time.
Despite all sorts of signs he was not quite himself for much of the match, Federer beat the biceps-baring, hard-hitting, court-covering Sandgren, 6-3, 2-6, 2-6, 7-6 (8), 6-3, early Tuesday morning in a rollicking quarterfinal that appeared to be over long before it truly was.
“For the most time there, I thought that was it. Of course, there’s little sparkles where maybe not. Then you’re like, ‘No, it is over,’ ” said Federer, who only once before had won after facing as many as seven match points, equaling his personal best from all the way back in 2003. “Only maybe when I won that fourth set did I really think that, maybe, this whole thing could turn around.”
He said afterward that it had been his groin muscle that was the problem and he couldn’t be certain whether he would be fully recovered for his next match. That will come against defending champion Novak Djokovic, who overwhelmed No. 32 Milos Raonic, 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 (1), to improve to 10-0 against the 2016 Wimbledon runner-up.
“He was just too good,” Raonic said.
It’ll be the 50th meeting between No. 3 Federer, who has won 20 Grand Slam titles, and No. 2 Djokovic, who owns 16.
Djokovic leads their head-to-head series 26-23, including their past five matches at majors.
“Roger is Roger. You know that he’s always going to play on such a high level, regardless of the surface,” Djokovic said. “He loves to play these kind of matches, big rivalries, semis, finals of Grand Slams.”
On the women’s side Simona Halep is within two wins of completing her quest for a third major title.
Halep earned a trip to the semifinals with a 6-1, 6-1 win over No. 28-seeded
Anett Kontaveit in just 53 minutes.
Kontaveit held the opening game at love. From then on, it was all one way as Wimbledon champion Halep went on a relentless, 11-game roll that took the quarterfinal match away from her Estonian rival.
Halep worked for every point and strangled Kontaveit’s opportunities. She only faced one break point and fended it off with a commanding forehand winner.
In the second set, Halep won the longest rally of the match — a 25-shot exchange — and then followed it up immediately with an ace on the way to 5-0 lead.
“I felt great today on court. I feel my game. I feel strong on my legs. I’ve been focused, every point,” Halep said. “I worked a little bit more in the offseason. First time in my life I did the offseason away from home, so I could be focused. No days off.
“This year I’ve started very well. I’m feeling much stronger than before.”
Garbine Muguruza topped 30th-seeded Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, 7-5, 6-3, to move into the semifinal against Halep.
Unseeded at a major for the first time since 2014, Muruguza has reached the Australian Open semis for the first time and is back in the last four at a Grand Slam for the first time since the 2018 French Open, when she lost to eventual champion Halep.
Muguruza and Halep have both held the No. 1 ranking and each has won two major titles, but none on hard courts.