Wimbledon 2012: Roger Federer keeps his dream of equalling Sampras' record alive - Times of India

LONDON: On a dark, cloudy afternoon at the All England Club with a storm brewing overhead and the roof drawn firmly over the Centre Court, six-time Wimbledon champion Roger Federer came up with a cautious mix of resilience and range to stop defending champion and world No. 1 Novak Djokovic 6-3, 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 in the semifinals.

In the final on Sunday, Federer will play fourth-seeded home-hope Andy Murray, who beat Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 to become the first Briton in 74 years to make the Wimbledon final.

Victory on Sunday will take the 30-year-old level with Pete Sampras' record of seven Wimbledon wins, allow him to reclaim the world number one ranking and clinch a 17th career Grand Slam crown.

Cheered on by India's champion batsman Sachin Tendulkar, seated in the royal box, Federer, who led Djokovic 14-12 in head-to-head clashes going into the semifinal, but having lost six of their last seven meetings, refused to back off against a player, who sparkled in patches.

Federer, who stormed into a record eighth final at SW19, said, "I am obviously ecstatic with the win. It has been a tough tournament. The first two sets went very quickly. Then in the third set I may be stepped it up a little and may be even got a little lucky. It was nice beating Novak who has done so well here. It's great to be in another Wimbledon final, I've had my share of tough losses here, especially in the last two years when I lost to Berdych and Tsonga, so this feels good."

Djokovic made no excuses for his loss. "Until the end of the third set I thought we were pretty even. We split sets and we both had break point opportunities in the third set. Then my first serve percentage dropped. I had a bad service game at 5-4. Roger played well. At important moments in the match he was aggressive. That's what you expect when you play him. I expected that of myself too, but I wasn't there today."

If the first two sets of the first semifinal were all about settling down, trading strokes and holding serves, with the players splitting the spoils, the third set was about getting ahead and establishing a hold on the match.

Federer got a couple of chances to breakaway in the fourth game of the third set. The first chance came at 15-30, but the 30-year-old artist-athlete bungled with his forehand when he was presented with a second serve that sat up beautifully. Federer repeated the error in execution two points later at 30-40 when he sent another forehand wide.

In the sixth game, the window of opportunity opened once more for Federer when Djokovic double faulted, his second of the match, at 30-30. Then in a 23-shot rally, where it appeared that the world no. 1 was defending territory, Djokovic came up with his most aggressive tennis of the match to bring the game back to deuce.

Up in the players' box, Djokovic's girlfriend Jelena Ristic, in an electric blue wrap, was on her feet. After the fourth deuce of the game, Federer rifled one those elegant single fisted backhands of his to close out a 25-shot rally that gave him another breakpoint. Djokovic, however, refused to dance, staying his ground and holding serve.

In the ninth game the Serbian joker enjoyed a breakpoint opportunity, but Federer slammed three good first serves in succession to take a 5-4 lead. In the following game, the ace veteran had two chances to break after Djokovic sent a routine overhead long. The Serbian saved the first with a good serve, but Federer thumped an overhead in a this-is-how-you-do-it manner to wrap-up the set at 6-4.

With the full house firmly behind Federer, the Swiss superstar took control of the match. He broke Djokovic in the second game of the fourth set after the Serb came up with an error strewn game just when he needed to make a strong stand to stay in the match. Thirteen minutes into the fourth set Federer was looking invincible at 3-0.