Federer advances after Houdini act
MELBOURNE: Roger Federer performed his second Houdini act of this year’s Australian Openlast night, saving seven match points on the way to a nervewracking 63, 26, 26, 76 (108) 63 comeback victory over American world No 100 Tennys Sandgren.
Friday’s thirdround win against Australian hope John Millman, when the 20time grand slam champion won six straight points from 84 down in the final set tiebreaker, was touted as the great escape.
His quarterfinal victory four days later was more epic still.
Millman had a world ranking under 50 and had at least defeated the Swiss before, at the 2018 US Open.
But Sandgren had never faced Federer, who in turn had never lost to someone as lowlyranked as the American at Melbourne Park.
‘‘You’ve got to get lucky sometimes,’’ Federer said with a smile.
‘‘I tell you that because in those seven match points you’re not in control.
‘‘I was just hoping that maybe he wasn’t going to smash a winner. If he misses one or two, who knows what’s going to happen? I think I got incredibly lucky today.
‘‘. . . I don’t deserve this one but I’m still standing here and I’m obviously very, very happy.’’
In the women’s draw, Ash Barty stormed into her maiden Australian Open semifinal with an emphatic 76 (86), 62 win over Petra Kvitova that avenged her defeat by the hardhitting Czech in last year’s quarterfinal at Melbourne Park.
Thrashed 61, 64 by eventual finalist Kvitova 12 months ago, top seed Barty (23) rode a wave of crowd support as she defused the twice Wimbledon champion’s power game before running away with the contest.
‘‘It’s been absolutely incredible, I knew I had to bring my absolute best against Petra,’’ Barty said.
‘‘I absolutely love testing myself against her.’’
Barty became the first Australian woman to reach the semifinals at Melbourne Park since Wendy Turnbull in 1984.
Sofia Kenin kept her game neat and tidy to see off bighitting Tunisian Ons Jabeur 64, 64 and reach her first grand slam semifinal.
The 21yearold American arrived in Melbourne after a breakthrough 2019 season during which she won all three of her WTA singles titles and went into yesterday’s clash with a 31 record against Jabeur.
Perhaps aware she did not have the power to match her opponent, Kenin instead focused on keeping her error count to a minimum.
Jabeur, the first Arab woman to reach a grand slam quarterfinal, produced 20 more winners than her opponent but Kenin made up for that by maintaining the same gap in unforced errors.— Reuters