By Kamakshi Tandon

Andy Roddick was expecting a lot of things from this match. Humiliation wasn't one of them.

But that feeling was hard to avoid as he fell 6-4, 6-0, 6-2 in the Australian Open semfinals to defending champion Roger Federer, who has yet to drop a set in reaching his record-tying seventh consecutive Grand Slam final.

Coming into the match, Federer had broken an Open Era record by reaching his 11th consecutive Grand Slam semifinal, and on this form it looks like another record will soon be his: winning three consecutive majors twice in a career.

But if quantifying Federer's excellence often requires involved measurements, his match numbers on Thursday were simple arithmetic: 45 winners, 12 unforced errors, and 83 points won to Roddick's 45.

Initially, things promised to be more compeititive. The two exchanged breaks early in the first set and looked to be settling down for a lengthy encounter. But from 4-4 onwards, the Swiss world No. 1 won 10 games in a row, lifting his play to heights reserved for him alone.

"I got broken. Then I got broken three more times. Then I got broken two more times in the third set. Then it was over 26 minutes later," said Roddick, with the combative humor he frequently displays after a loss. He received a round of applause at the end of his post-match interview.

Federer was equally blunt in his description. "Started reading his serve. Started hitting passing shots. Started not making mistakes from the baseline. No unforced errors, just winners."

By the middle of the second set, Federer was producing such an embarassing stream of winners that he half-apologized after one particularly outrageous example: a flicked backhand that left Roddick flat-footed after the American thought he had hit a point-ending shot.

Roddick, understandably befuddled, began to unravel. Whatever grand plans he and coach Jimmy Connors had laid before the match fell by the wayside as Roddick began looking like the Roddick of old, hurling himself at points rather than working his way into them.

"I think I left a lot out there on the table tonight.," said Roddick. "I don't feel like I played like I have for the rest of the tournament. I've come in here at times and said I played pretty well. You know, he just beat me. I think it was a combination tonight."

How did he rate Fernando Gonzalez's or Tommy Haas' chances in the final against the Swiss on Sunday? "Slim," said Roddick.

Federer had made particular note of the threat posed by Roddick's serve before the match, but on court he made a mockery of his own praise by manhandling Roddick's deliveries. He was 100% successful on break points,  breaking seven times during the match. On his own serve the last two sets, he did not give up a single beak point despite a first-serve percentage of only 40%.

"I read Andy's serves almost like back in the day in Wimbledon when I played him for one of the first times, in the semis [when] I was playing out of my mind," said Federer, who defeated Roddick on the way to his first Grand Slam title at Wimbledon in 2003.

Roddick slammed a ball in frustration after going down 5-0 in the second set, and nearly ended his tournament there and then when his racquet hit a courtside photographer. He apologized and received a warning, but it could have meant an automatic disqualification.

Instead, he had to stay out there and take the rest of his beating, facing up to the loss afterwards. "My dad didn't raise me to run away from it, so here I am," he said. "It's there. It happened. You deal with it. You try your best to move forward."

Before the match, Roddick felt the gap between him and Federer had closed in the last six months. "Yeah, not tonight," he said.

Not even the computerized replays went Roddick's way. Federer, no fan of Hawk-Eye, twice challenged correctly in the first three games of the third set. He ended four for four on the night. Roddick, meanwhile, missed an opportunity to challenge a bad call in the third game of the set and then made an incorrect challenge in the fourth.

As for the scoreline itself, it was surely the most comprehensive drubbing of a former No. 1 in a Grand Slam match since Federer destroyed Lleyton Hewitt 6-0, 7-6(3), 6-0 in the 2004 U.S. Open final. For Roddick, it was the first time he had lost a bagel set in his entire Grand Slam career.

"Why'd you do it?" Jim Courier asked Federer at the beginning of the courtside interview. "I don't know what to say," Federer smiled. "It's unreal."

Federer also had some philosophical words for Roddick afterwards "It was just one of those days – for him to forget and me to remember. That's it."