Roger Federer beats Stan Wawrinka to reach Australian Open final

 

 

             Perhaps being sidelined by a knee injury for the past six months was the best thing that’s happened recently to Roger Federer.

The rest and relaxation of spending time in Switzerland recuperating seems to have healed and invigorated the 35-year-old Swiss star. The big prize is now dangling in front of Federer – the possibility of his 18th Grand Slam title. And not to worry as to where Federer can store another Grand Slam trinket. He has a trophy room, not a shelf, so there’s always plenty of space to spare.

In the end, it would take Federer 3 hours, 5 minutes to earn passage into his 28th career Grand Slam final  via a 7-5, 6-3, 1-6, 4-6, 6-3 semifinal win over Stan Wawrinka at the Australian Open on Thursday night. “What I’ve just come to realize is when you don’t feel well, you have too many problems going on, you just won’t beat top-10 players,” Federer said. “At some point you reach a limit, and you can’t go beyond that.

“The six months definitely gave me something in return."

Overall, Federer’s shown incredible fight this fortnight playing in his first official tournament since Wimbledon last July. He’s even had to survive two five-set thrillers, one against fifth seed Kei Nishikori in the fourth round and the other Wednesday night against the fourth-seeded Wawrinka.

Jockeying for a spot in the final turned out to be a challenging task for Federer against Wawrinka. When Federer went ahead by two sets, it seemed close all but decided. But Wawrinka, a three-time Grand Slam champion, wasn’t going gently into the night.

The match had all the drama necessary to make a tennis match enthralling to fans.

There was intriguing shot-making - the fluidity of Federer’s serve to the grace of Wawrinka’s one-handed backhand, the ebb-and-flow of the match as the players exploited different aspects of each other's game -  kept patrons guessing about the outcome.

Both players went off court for injury timeouts - Wawrinka at the end of the second set for a knee, Federer at the end of the fourth set for an upper leg problem. In a post-match press conference, it was somewhat surprising that Federer almost admitted to gamesmanship on taking the medical treatment.

“I think these injury timeouts, I think they’re more mental than anything else,’ Federer said. “For the first time, maybe during a match, you can actually talk to someone, even if it’s just a physio…That can leave a positive effect on you when you come back.

“I only really did take the timeout because I thought, he took one already, maybe I can take one for a change, because I’m not a believer in any way that we should be allowed to take a lot of timeouts," he added. "People know I don’t usually abuse the system. I hope it’s going to stay that way in the future for me, too.”

The match finally landed on Federer’s racket on a huge unforced error by Wawrinka.  The score was 15-40 on Wawrinka’s serve in the sixth game of the fifth set when he double-faulted. Federer, just like that, was ahead 4-2 with the end in sight.

“It was an awkward match,” Federer said. “Always against Stan, it was always never going to be easy. I think he gave me a cheap break in the fifth, after that, I never looked back.”

It’s been a long time since Federer won his 17th Grand Slam trophy back at Wimbledon in 2012. A four-time past Australian Open champion, Federer’s been in three finals since that Wimbledon – the 2014 and 2015 Wimbledon finals, and the 2015 U.S. Open, but left the court disappointed on all three occasions.

Who will be Federer’s final opponent is a question that won’t be answered until Friday night.

Undoubtedly, fans would like to see the renewal of the Federer and Rafael Nadalrivalry. The Spaniard holds a commanding 23-11 edge in their past career matches. The other possibility is Federer will play 15th seed Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria, who has never journeyed to a Grand Slam final.

As far as Federer’s concerned who he plays is of little importance. He just doesn’t want that person to spoil his celebration party.

“You would probably think I have a slight better chance to beat Dimitrov than Nadal,” he said. “But who cares. At the end it matters if you win or not.”