Roger Federer was in trouble early, but he righted the ship quickly and got past Tomas Berdych in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open on Wednesday night, 7-6 (1), 6-3, 6-4.
Here are five takeaways from the world No. 2’s straight set win over the former world No.4:
1. Federer reached his 14th Australian Open semifinal and 43rd Grand Slam semifinal. Both of those are, by far, Open era records—Stefan Edberg has the next-most Australian Open semifinals with eight, and Jimmy Connors and Novak Djokovic are tied for next-most Grand Slam semifinals with 31.
2. He beat Berdych for the 20th time, and the ninth time in a row. Berdych’s last win over Federer came almost five years ago at Dubai in 2013. Since then, Federer has beaten Berdych nine times in a row, and won 22 of their last 23 sets. His head-to-head record against the Czech now stands at 20-6.
3. He went from almost dropping his first set of the tournament to a masterclass. Federer was in all kinds of trouble in the first set, originally trailing 5-2 and eventually facing two set points—one down 5-3, which he saved with a backhand winner, and another later in the set serving at 5-6, 30-40. But once he dug his way out of that first set, Federer was unstoppable, finishing the match with just over twice as many winners as unforced errors (61 to 30) and wrapping it up in two hours and 14 minutes.
TenniStory: Roger Federer
