Tennis News

Roger Federer‘s dominance over the US Open has faded in recent years and his one-sided record against Stan Wawrinka has become more of a battle. Will Federer turn back the block in Friday’s semifinals and beat Wawrinka to return to the US Open final? Forget Swiss neutrality: Friday night in New York is all about Swiss brutality as Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka leave friendship at the entrance to the court and battle for a place in the US Open final. Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka will clash for the 20th time in the semi-finals of the US Open on Friday.

It’s remarkable, given the supremacy Federer had once established over the fourth and final Grand Slam of the year, that the five-time US Open champion hasn’t reached the US Open final since 2009, when he lost in five sets to Juan Martin del Potro. Denied by Novak Djokovic in the semifinals in 2010 and 2011, Federer made two relatively early exits by his standards in 2012 and 2013, and when he returned to the semifinals in 2014, he was defeated by an inspired Marin Cilic, who blasted him off the court in straight sets. In fact, you have to go back to 2011 to find the last time Federer made a Grand Slam final at any tournament outside of Wimbledon, and the 2010 Australian Open for the last time he made a hard-court Slam final. These facts are not insignificant.

There’s a kind of poetry in the fact that Federer faces Stan Wawrinka, whose career blossomed late after so many years in his compatriot’s shadow, in Friday’s semifinals. Wawrinka’s Grand Slam record compared to Federer’s is as lopsided as their head-to-head – 16-3 in Federer’s favour – but both have shifted dramatically in recent years. Don’t let this one deceive you. Roger Federer may have won 13 of their 14 earliest meetings, but late-blooming Stan Wawrinka was, for a long time, the guy with all the talent, without the consistency, and without belief and confidence. Federer also leads 11-0 on hard-courts.

Since winning his first major at the 2014 Australian Open, Wawrinka has won two of his five duels with Federer – and in the match that puts Roger 3-2 ahead, Stan had four match points. He also won their last encounter, a straight-sets heart-breaker that kicked the No. 1 Swiss out of the French Open – which the Swiss no. 2 would go on to win. Between 2009 and 2014, Federer went undefeated against Wawrinka, as he defeated his lower ranked compatriot eleven times in a row.

All three of Wawrinka’s victories against Federer have come on clay courts, often in slow, damp conditions. Federer on a quicker Arthur Ashe Stadium will be an entirely different proposition – especially given the way that the second seed has been playing. Federer came into the US Open on the back of a victory at the Cincinnati Masters and is the only player still alive in the draw not to have dropped a set (Wawrinka has lost just one, to Donald Young).

Both players have really been crushing all opposition so far at the US Open, with Wawrinka even imitating Federer’s new aggressive returning technique – SABR, or Sneak Attack Behind Return – in his last match against Kevin Anderson. Federer has been playing at a higher level, with Wawrinka more just getting through his matches before raising his level somewhat in his last two matches, but that could mean the fifth seed is peaking at the right time – and that Federer could be unprepared for his first serious opposition, something we’ve seen with him at Grand Slams recently where he cruises until it matters.

We know how Federer is going to play: He’s going to play the same super-attacking tennis which has got him to this point. And we know how Wawrinka will have to play; big, big on every shot, to try to dominate and take the initiative from the first ball. He did it superbly in the quarterfinals of the French Open, but it will be much more difficult for him in New York. The match-up looks far too close to be settled in straight sets but Federer is much more comfortable with the kind of tennis he’s going to need to play than Wawrinka is and, if the five-time US Open champion can manage his nerves, that might be what sees him into his first US Open final for six years.

Roger is possibly playing his best tennis since the 2012 Wimbledon triumph but Stan’s late career rise is definitely note-worthy winning 2 slams. Roger will hold off his compatriot in this epic. The big question for Stan is can he turn up? Roger is  not expected to miss his best chance to win Grand Slam No.18. One thing is for sure – we will have a Swiss man in the finals on Sunday

​Marin Cilic‘s gallant defense of his US Open title looks set to end on Friday as he faces Novak Djokovic, against whom he has never won, in the third of Friday’s blockbuster US Open semifinals live from New York. Defending US Open champion Marin Cilic is 0-13 against his semifinal opponent, world no. 1 Novak Djokovic. Will the New York magic help Cilic get his first win? Not many picked Cilic to get this far in defending his title. Since capturing his first Grand Slam in stunning style 12 months ago on Arthur Ashe Stadium, defeating Roger Federer in the semifinals and Kei Nishikori in the final, the lanky Croatian has struggled with a shoulder injury that saw him miss the opening months of the 2015 season and it took him a while to find any form to speak of on his return.

With a run to the quarterfinals of Wimbledon – where he lost to Djokovic – and a semifinal showing in Washington, D.C., however, Cilic started showing signs of, if not his best, then some effective tennis and despite two five-set battles with Mikhail Kukushkin and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga respectively, he has defied expectations to return to the semifinals in New York. There’s no getting around the fact that Cilic’s gallant attempt at defending his title is likely to come to an end against Novak Djokovic in the semifinals, however.

There were a few questions surrounding Djokovic’s form and fitness coming into the US Open, where he won the title in 2011 and finished runner-up four times (2007, 2010, 2012 and 2013). Djokovic made the finals in both Montreal and Cincinnati, but lost to Andy Murray and Roger Federer respectively in those finals and had arm and stomach injuries to contend with as well – unsurprising after a stellar season which has seen him win the Australian Open and Wimbledon, finish runner-up at the French Open, win Masters Series titles in Indian Wells, Miami, Monte Carlo and Rome, compiling a win-loss record which currently stands at 61-5 for the year.

Djokovic has steadied the ship – not that it was ever rocking very badly – at the US Open, however, cruising through the first three rounds in straight sets and although he went on to drop sets to Roberto Bautista Agut and Feliciano Lopez in the round of 16 and quarterfinals respectively, he never looked in the remotest danger of losing either match. Indeed, his progress to the semifinals has been reminiscent of how he played at Wimbledon: Not flawlessly by any means, but well within himself and with plenty to spare for the climactic final stages.

Naturally, that doesn’t bode terribly well for Cilic. 0-13 against Djokovic, Cilic has only won five sets in those 13 matches, coming closest to victory in 2014 when he pushed Djokovic to five in the Wimbledon quarterfinals. Djokovic’s last nine sets against Cilic, dating back to that Wimbledon meeting, have been won by the following scorelines: 6-2, 6-2, 6-1, 6-1, 6-0, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4. Cilic, in other words, is not even getting close.

Try not to flinch. Novak may have a white-washing head-to-head record against the big-serving Croat, but the defending champion has pushed him closer in recent years. Since the beginning of 2014 Marin has taken Novak beyond straight sets in 3 of 5 encounters. However, if Marin were to win, he wouldn’t be the first player to turn a seriously lopsided head-to-head around on a big stage. If that wasn’t enough, Cilic also had that grueling quarterfinal duel with Tsonga in the heat of the day and also dropped one set to Jeremy Chardy and two to Kukushkin earlier in the event – hardly ideal preparation for a match against the fittest man in tennis.

That’s Cilic talking as good a game as he can be expected to under the circumstances, and he has the underdog’s advantage that nobody expects him to win. But against a player as defensively accomplished as the superb Djokovic, Cilic – even at his best – doesn’t really have the solidity off the ground that allows him to build the kind of relentlessly dominant points from the baseline that Juan Martin del Potro, for example, at his best could muster; and he doesn’t have the variety or clinical execution in attack that serves Roger Federer so well. Unless Djokovic has a serious letdown, and that is an eventuality which occurs more and more rarely these days, it’s difficult to see any other outcome than the world no. 1 progressing to his fourth Grand Slam final of the season.

The World No.1 is perhaps not in the best of form at Flushing Meadows this year; Cilic will certainly look to take advantage of that. Expect this to be a titanic tussle and Novak to come through. But Cilic will realize that this is his best chance to get on the board against Nole.