Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Federer advances to semis
Swede saves two match points against Berdych
KEY BISCAYNE — Roger Federer was two match points down in the third-set tiebreaker against his longtime foil, Tomas Berdych, a perennial Top 10 player who often folds under pressure in big moments.
Seconds before at 3-3 of the taut tiebreaker, the packed gallery on Stadium Court, mostly wearing RF on their hats, broke out into a rousing chant of, “Lets go, Roger.”
But now they were as silent as the giant iguana that roamed Court 1 last week, holding their collective breaths, anticipating one of Berdych’s 136-mph serves to send the resurgent 35-year-old Swiss legend and his growing brood packing.
Instead, the 10th-seeded Berdych realized who he was facing and dumped an easy forehand into the net. Then Federer, conjuring up memories of similar moments in some of his record 18 Grand Slam titles, reached back for back-to-back service winners, including a 125-mph ace, his 11th, to set up his second match point.
Berdych then gifted the fourth-
seeded Federer the lateafternoon match with a double fault on a kick second serve that landed about 6 feet outside the box for an anticlimactic ending to a riveting quarterfinal, 6-2, 3-6, 7-6 (6) Thursday in the Miami Open.
Instead of Roger and out, it was bye, bye Berdych, who dropped to 6-18 against Federer, including seven straight losses.
More significantly for the tournament’s sake and its tenuous future as well as for ESPN’s television ratings, the dream final of Federer and Rafael Nadal was alive.
“I was like, ‘Wow, are you kidding me? You’re too kind, Tomas. Why? How did I deserve this one?” said Federer, who won his seventh consecutive tiebreaker while improving to 17-1 this season, his best start since 2006.
“When it went out, I was like, ‘Are you serious?’
“At 6-4 down, things aren’t fun anymore. … Funny thing at [4-6], I thought I still had a chance and still believed I could turn it around even though there are other matches you feel mentally you’re on the plane already.’’
Federer, continuing his flawless tennis of late, cruised in the first set but grew bored in the second set, allowing Berdych to snap a 15-set losing streak to his longtime rival.
A couple of loose forehand errors gave Federer a 4-2 lead in the third set, but at 5-4 Federer uncharacteristically was broken at love, calling it a, “shocker.”
Federer had his first match point at 5-6, but Berdych forced the tiebreaker with a well-placed, gutsy 120-mph second serve.
“What do you think happened? I just lost by one point. It’s very simple,” a testy Berdych, 31, answered. “What should I do? Destroy this table? Then you’ll see how much I’m frustrated.”
Nadal, the fifth seed, who dispatched Jack Sock, the final American on the men’s side, 6-2, 6-3 in a late-evening match Wednesday, will have to get by unseeded Italian Fabio Fognini in a 1 p.m. semifinal on Friday.
Nadal, a four-time runner-up in Miami, is 7-3 against the 40th-ranked Fognini, 29, who’s in the second Masters semifinal of his career.
“I know him very well and he knows me very well,’’ Nadal said.
Federer said it would be, “cool,” to play Nadal for the 37th time (13-23), especially after beating him three straight times, including two weeks ago in Indian Wells and in the Australian Open final in January.
But he knows how dangerous Nick Kyrgios, the enigmatic, 21-year-old powerhouse Aussie who outlasted teen sensation Sasha Zverev 6-4, 6-7 (9), 6-3 in a thrilling evening quarterfinal.
Krygios, the 12th seed, cracked out 13 aces and 31 winners, but was unable to convert three match points in the second-set tiebreaker. He threw an assortment of jumping drop shots and successful in-between-the-legs shots, that energized the audience.